2025
12/23/2025
Steve Carlton’s Magical 1972 Season Set Modern Day Cy Young Award Standard
Most baseball experts agree Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year and 2025 NL Cy Young Award winner, is one of the best young pitchers in major league baseball today.
He won the Cy Young Award this year as his league’s top pitcher with an incredible 1.97 earned run average and 216 strikeouts, despite a pedestrian .500 record of ten wins and ten losses. After two years with the lowly Pirates, Skenes has a career record of 21-13 with 386 strikeouts and a 1.96 earned run average.
He would likely have more wins to date if he pitched for a contending team like the Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, or Blue Jays. But that is not where number one draft picks typically find themselves, at least not until they have sufficient playing time to become free agents or are traded.
While I had hoped Christopher Sanchez of the Phillies would be named the Cy Young Award winner with his 13-5 record, 2.50 ERA, and 212 strikeouts, voters opted for Skenes.
That did not sit well with my neighbor, Michael, who stopped me while I was walking my dogs. He wanted to know how a pitcher with as many losses as wins could be considered the best. I explained that voters value ERA and other statistics higher than victories these days and also that Skenes pitched for a last place team.
“So did Steve Carlton in 1972,” he replied, “and he won 27 games.”
Game, set, and match to Michael, who definitely has a legitimate point.
There has likely never been a more deserving Cy Young Award winner in major league baseball than Carlton, the tall left-hander who went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA and 310 strikeouts that season. The Phillies managed only 59 wins with 97 losses, yet Carlton attained pitching’s triple crown by leading the league in all three major pitching categories while pitching for a cellar-dwelling team.
To say Carlton, who was known simply as Lefty, was dominant in 1972 is like saying Roger Maris showed a little power while hitting 61 homeruns in 1961.
The 1972 Phillies were terrible, they couldn’t hit, their fielding was suspect, and other than Carlton, they couldn’t pitch well either. Somehow, though, none of that mattered when Lefty took the mound and he accounted for an amazing 45.7 percent of his team’s victories.
Carlton was magnificent, winning 15 consecutive games that season. The Phillies scored two or fewer runs in 11 of his starts and he won nine of them. His 12.5 WAR, a comprehensive and advanced statistic that measures a pitcher’s overall effectiveness, was the highest since Hall of Famer Walter Johnson in 1913.
Incredibly, Carlton pitched 30 complete games in 1972, faced 1,351 batters, and had eight shutouts. He gave up a miniscule 76 earned runs for the entire season and walked only 87 batters, eight of them intentionally.
Carlton pitched against his former St. Louis Cardinals teammate Bob Gibson on April 19, 1972, and not only pitched a shutout but also had two hits off the future Hall of Famer. Lefty beat the Cardinals again on September 7, a 2-1 victory that took only one hour and 49 minutes to complete and marked the 100th victory in his career.
Major League Baseball had little need for a pitch clock back when Carlton was on the mound. He wasted no time between pitches and was known for his incredible focus and tremendous mental and physical conditioning.
As shared on the Steve Carlton official website at www.stevecarlton.com, “The ten-time All-Star was able to log over 5,000 innings in his career and pitch into his 40s by being in excellent shape. He began his major league career in 1965 with the St. Louis Cardinals and retired in 1988 with the Minnesota Twins. In between, he pitched for the Chicago White Sox, San Francisco Giants, and Cleveland Indians, but was most well-known for his 15-year tenure with the Philadelphia Phillies.”
Rich Westcott, author of the book, “Philadelphia’s Top Fifty Baseball Players,” published by the University of Nebraska Press, quoted Phillies Hall of Fame outfielder and broadcaster Richie Ashburn as saying, “Lefty was a craftsman, an artist. He was a perfectionist. He painted a ballgame. Stroke, stroke, stroke, and when he got through it was a masterpiece. There was nothing accidental about it. His games were perfectly orchestrated.”
Ashburn was on the Phillies TV and radio broadcast team throughout Carlton’s long tenure in Philadelphia and had a tremendous view of Lefty’s pitching expertise.
Carlton mastered a devastating slider that broke late and gave hitters little time to react, as well as a powerful fastball and an effective sweeping curveball. He was the first pitcher to win four Cy Young Awards, and the last to pitch over 300 innings in a single season when he threw 304 for the 1980 World Series Champion Phillies.
A four-time 20-game winner with 27 wins in 1972, 20 in 1976, 23 in 1977, and 24 in 1980, Carlton won games two and six in the 1980 World Series as the Phillies defeated the Kansas City Royals for the team’s first World Series Championship.
To put that in perspective, there have been only five National League pitchers to win 20 games in a season in the last ten years. Jake Arrrieta won 22 for the 2015 Chicago Cubs, Max Scherzer, 20 for the 2016 Washington Nationals, Julio Urias, 20 for the 2021 Los Angeles Dodgers, Kyle Wright, 20 for the 2022 Atlanta Braves, and Spencer Strider, 20 for the 2023 Braves.
Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994, Carlton’s career marks of 329 wins, 55 shutouts, and 4,136 strikeouts will be difficult for anyone to match.
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11/8/2025
Wilkes’ record-setting ‘Golden Horde’ football players hold 60-year reunion
No team wins 32 consecutive football games without talented players, great coaching, hard work, tremendous fan support and a little magic. The Blue and Gold Colonels of what was then known as Wilkes College in the mid-to-late 1960s had all of that and more when they were hailed as the best Division 3 team in the country.
Wilkes dominated opponents most of the time, but there were a few close calls and a magical ending occurred during a road game against Lebanon Valley College in 1966. With six seconds left in the game and the score tied at seven, Lebanon Valley looked to put the contest away with a 37-yard field goal attempt. The kick sailed wide and Wilkes took possession of the ball on their own 20-yard-line with one second remaining on the clock.
The odds of going 80 yards on the last play of the game were astronomical, but that is indeed what happened. With starting quarterback Rich Roshong injured, coach Rollie Schmidt called upon freshman Joe Zakowski to enter the game for what was to be just the second play in his young college career.
Naturally, he looked to his coach for instructions.
“Coach Schmidt told me to throw the ball as far as I could, so that’s what I did,” Zakowski recalled. “Paul Purta caught the Hail Mary pass for the winning score.”
The young quarterback, though, did not see the game-winning and streak-saving catch.
“The sun was in my eyes, and I was knocked down just as I threw the pass,” he said. “I was stretched out on the ground when Paul scored that touchdown.”
Zakowski remembered Purta for taking the freshman under his wing and acclimating Joe to college.
“Paul was also like an assistant coach on the field,” Zakowski said. “He could talk with Coach, and Rollie respected Paul enough to consider his suggestions. Knowing he had Rollie’s support, Paul called a fourth-and-goal audible for the go ahead touchdown against Drexel.”
Being part of the longest D3 winning streak in the country at that time created a lifetime bond for the players and coaches of those 1965-69 Wilkes teams. Many of the players, known collectively as the Golden Horde, gathered recently at Patte’s Sports Bar in Wilkes-Barre to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the winning streak.
George Pawlush, the driving force behind the reunion, graduated from Wilkes in 1969 and witnessed up-close the Golden Horde’s incredible accomplishments. He has worked consistently over the years to make sure the heroics of his friends, the members and coaches of those Wilkes teams, are not forgotten.
Pawlush shared stories of the winning streak during his years as the school’s sports information director and public relations director. He also wrote the book, “Zeus and the Boys – Wilkes College Football, Coach Rollie Schmidt & Their Historic Winning Streak,” that was published in 2020.
“Everyone is getting older, now in our late 70s and early 80s, so the opportunity to get together again, renew friendships and talk about old times and the record-setting winning streak was something we simply had to do,” Pawlush said. “From 1965 to 1969, little Wilkes College was the mecca of the country’s Division 3 football.”
“It’s great to see everyone and talk about our football days,” agreed Ted Yeager, whose first rushing play in 1968 was a 67-yard touchdown run in a win over the University of Vermont.
The stories flowed freely, including the Hail Mary pass, Wilkes beating perennial powerhouse teams like East Stroudsburg, traveling to New Jersey to scrimmage and do well against Princeton, and players consistently stepping up when needed.
“It was an amazing era,” remembered Bernie Vinovrski, a member of the 1965 team who later served as dean of admissions at Wilkes. “We lost to Upsala early in the ’65 season and by the time the Class of 1969 graduated, the seniors did not lose another game.”
“We played physical football and our defense shut teams down consistently, so we never thought about losing,” powerful lineman Ed Burke said. “We expected to win every game.”
Those Wilkes teams had confidence but were not cocky.
“We were well-coached, we believed in ourselves and had each other’s backs,” remembered Joe Skvarla, a big-play receiver during the Golden Horde years who joined the coaching staff in 1971 and served on the Wilkes faculty for many years.
Stories flowed about Coach Schmidt and everyone’s admiration for the man who taught them about pride and poise. Schmidt’s teams were coached to practice until perfect, play hard, outwork opponents and remain focused and poised even when facing adversity.
Bill Hanbury, a former Wilkes standout who graduated in 1972, was unable to attend the reunion, but delivered Coach Schmidt’s eulogy on June 1, 2015.
“Coach was a disciple of pride and poise in everything you did on and off the field,” Hanbury said. “His genius was simple. Stick to the basics and work non-stop until you can execute them perfectly. He wanted us to be the best and do our best in every situation … athletics, academics, and in everyday life.”
Wilkes University Head Coach David Biever, the 10th head coach in the football program’s history, wants the same for today’s players. He felt honored to attend the reunion, address the Golden Horde gathering, and provide attendees with Wilkes football hats.
“We tell our players Golden Horde stories all the time,” Biever said. “Your pictures are on the wall and we talk about the incredible things you accomplished. You are the gold standard of Wilkes football, and we aspire to be like you.”
The Golden Horde made college football history with pride, poise and class, even when the streak finally ended in a 13-7 loss at Ithaca. They will forever be remembered, revered and appreciated.
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10/4/2025
What is wrong with today’s sports fans?
By now, most everyone has heard about some American fans’ despicable behavior at the Ryder Cup competition against the European team at Bethpage Black on Long Island.
Ryder Cup is known for energetic players and fans, but that has historically expressed itself in cheering for your team rather than targeting the opposition with loud, vile and consistent shouting and chanting.
From too many F-bombs to count to Rory McIlroy’s wife getting hit with a thrown beer, you would never know this year’s Ryder Cup was a golf competition; the sport of honor and good sportsmanship.
The fans did not even let up when European players, especially Rory, were hitting the ball. Tradition and proper etiquette at golf and tennis matches is to be quiet during the golf shot or the tennis serve. But not last week on Long Island.
That’s where comedian Heather McMahan was on hand to emcee the first tee player introductions. Trying to be funny, perhaps, or getting caught up in the vulgarity, McMahan actually joined the crowd in expletive laden chants and magnified their volume.
That is just what the PGA of America did not need, and the organization released a statement the next morning: “Heather McMahan has extended an apology to Rory McIlroy and Ryder Cup Europe and has stepped down from hosting the first tee of the Ryder Cup.”
The damage was already done and there was no shifting the gallery into reverse. Not after McIlroy himself added fuel to the fire by allowing the unruly fans get to him and yelling profane responses to the crowd.
To be fair, the majority of the fans acted appropriately. The considerable, overzealous and disrespectful contingent of loudmouths, though, continued to act like a profane cross between Caddyshack and Animal House.
To make things worse, the competition was broadcast live in the United States, Europe and many other countries. So the classless fans’ lack of manners and decorum was obvious and widespread.
Regrettably, we have come to expect this at football games, professional wrestling and such. But at a golf competition? That is when we know the rowdy ones have taken over and attending live sporting events is no longer in any way a safe family activity.
There will always be emotion, including some profanity, among individuals in a crowd, but the outrageous behavior at the Ryder Cup went well beyond what would be expected. The Europeans defeated the United States team 15-13, making the fans’ attempts to contribute to a victory ineffective to say the least.
On the heels of the Ryder Cup experience, football fans of the Colorado Buffaloes were heard loudly chanting, “(Expletive) the Mormons” during a game last week against BYU at Folsom Field in Boulder.
BYU, of course, is a Mormon school.
Once again, the profane fans did little to affect the outcome as 23rd ranked BYU defeated Colorado, 24-21. The University of Colorado apologized for its fans’ bad behavior and, on top of that, the Big 12 Conference fined Colorado $50,000 for the anti-Mormon chants.
“Hateful and discriminatory language has no home in the Big 12 Conference,” Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said in a statement. “While we appreciate Colorado apologizing for the chants that occurred in the stands during Saturday’s game, the Big 12 maintains zero tolerance for such behavior. Colorado will receive a $50,000 fine in accordance with our conference policies.”
Head coach Deion Sanders asked that the football program and university not be judged because of the ill-advised actions of a group of young people who were likely intoxicated.
“BYU, we love you, we appreciate you and we support you,” he said.
These recent incidents are the latest in what is becoming a serious problem for the leagues, organizations, athletes and fans that sponsor, participate in or attend sporting events. A blog by the Trine University Center for Sports Studies reported that a 2023 survey of 3,200 football fans conducted by Sportsbook Review found “39.2 percent of NFL fans have witnessed a crime at or around an NFL stadium” and “7.2 percent of NFL fans have been a victim of crime in or around an NFL stadium.”
The majority of these incidents are related to physical violence, intoxication, disorderly conduct, verbal harassment and sexual harassment. While the sample size was small, this study indicates that violence at NFL games “is not rare.”
In a society fueled by social media and its preference for people to express their opinions and dissatisfaction continually, loudly, and often anonymously, it is not a big leap to people verbally and physically misbehaving to various degrees in public.
While the overconsumption of alcohol is often listed as a common factor that negatively affects fans behavior, the makers of alcoholic beverages are among the largest sponsors and advertisers that help to fund athletic events. Considerable amounts of money are spent on beer and other alcoholic beverages at each game, match or tournament.
While there is a “last call for alcohol” at major sporting events, there is a lack of consistency in its enforcement and the fans themselves need to step up. It is well past time for these events to simply be a prime opportunity for a day-long drunk fest.
These factors stem from an overall societal erosion where interpersonal connection, respect and kindness decrease day by day. Combine that with watching idiotic fan behavior on display and the results are not surprising.
Let’s take some pride in ourselves and resist using profanity and being derogatory. Don’t be driven by a need to negatively comment on every little thing. Learn to ignore rather than confront other people. Walk away and enjoy the rest of the game.
Prices are too expensive for attendees to not feel safe and enjoy themselves. We all deserve better.
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9/27/2025
Remembering Bernie Parent, Hockey Hall of Fame goalie and friend to all
Philadelphia Flyers Hall of Fame goalie Bernie Parent was on the phone, so my brother Carl, a friend of Bernie’s, dropped everything to take the call.
It was Nov. 13, 1985, two days after Pelle Lindbergh — the young, star goaltender with the Flyers who reminded everyone of Parent — was killed in an automobile accident. Bernie had taken a special interest in the young man from Sweden, coached and mentored him, and became his friend.
Lindbergh idolized Parent while growing up and it was his dream come true to play for the Flyers. He took great pride in his goaltending and worked hard to continue the excellence in goal established years earlier by Parent.
Devastated by Lindbergh’s death, Bernie said it felt like he lost a son. The Flyers scheduled a memorial service at the Spectrum prior to the team’s game against the Edmonton Oilers on Nov. 14, 1985. The team asked Parent to eulogize his friend and that was the reason for Bernie’s phone call.
“It’s going to be very hard for me to speak and I want you and your brother to be there,” Bernie said. “I will have tickets waiting for you. Please come.”
So we were on hand when Bernie approached a podium placed at center ice and spoke from the heart about Lindbergh, the young man who considered Bernie his hero. In typical fashion, Bernie rose to the occasion and spoke eloquently about Lindbergh’s life and the impression he made in Philadelphia, Sweden and throughout the world of hockey.
I was reminded of this story and other interactions with the hockey legend upon learning of Parent’s death last week at the age of 80.
Bernie led the Flyers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships in 1974 and 1975, the first expansion team to capture the coveted trophy. He was on top of his game, and the Spectrum was adorned with fans holding signs reading, “Only the Lord Saves More than Bernie Parent.”
His on-ice performance more than justified the fans’ faith in him. An original Flyer, he won a record 47 games in the 1973-74 season and another 44 games in 1974-75. Bernie earned the Vezina Trophy as the best goaltender in the NHL and also the league’s Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs for both of the Flyers’ Cup-winning years.
Parent’s accomplishments are even more impressive because much of the time he was tending goal for a shorthanded team with multiple players in the penalty box.
The Flyers were known as the Broad Street Bullies in those days when rough play and fighting were more prevalent. Flyers enforcer Dave Schultz alone had a record 472 penalty minutes during the 1974-75 season, leaving Parent to fend off numerous power play shots on goal during just about every game.
“The Philadelphia Flyers and Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education are heartbroken to learn of the passing of Bernie Parent, a true legend, one of the most famous and beloved players, and most popular figures in the history of the organization and the City of Philadelphia,” the Flyers said in a statement.
“The legend of Bernie Parent reached far beyond the ice and his accolades. Bernie had a deep love for Philadelphia and fans of the Flyers. … He dedicated his time, energy, and enthusiasm to not only grow the game, but also to spread joy to anyone he encountered. Anyone who had the pleasure of being around Bernie always walked away with a smile. He will be dearly missed.”
Bernie visited the Wyoming Valley many years ago with the Philadelphia Flyers Alumni team for a charity event sponsored by Wyoming Seminary and the school’s ice hockey program. He sat behind a table signing autographs for a long line of fans and took the time to talk with each one. When Bernie saw Carl, he insisted we stay by him and I spent the rest of that evening handing him hockey pucks to sign and give away.
One of my favorite times with Bernie was during a lunch at The Woodlands. He brought along both of his Stanley Cup championship rings that day and allowed me to briefly wear both of them. This was well before cell phone cameras, so there is no photo to accompany the memory. But I can still see it like it happened yesterday.
Major professional sports championship rings back then were indeed nice, but nothing like the gigantic and gaudy rings players on winning teams are given today. Still, they meant everything to the Montreal native who grew up dreaming of one day winning the Stanley Cup.
Bernie Parent was such a tremendous goalie and human being that even opposing teams and their fans respected and admired him. He wore the old-fashioned goalie mask when he played, the one that didn’t show any of his face, yet fans across the NHL recognized and greeted him. Even at Madison Square Garden where devoted Rangers fans are long known for their tenacity, they happily called out his name and said hello.
Bernie was in constant pain due to his bad back, but with his friendly demeanor, you would never know it. He even appeared at an event as a favor to Philadelphia sports writing icon Ray Didinger a few days before he passed.
That was Bernie; visiting the children’s hospitals, promoting youth hockey, and always doing whatever he could to help other people. Bernard Marcel Parent didn’t just save hockey games and win championships, he made things better for everyone around him.
I am so appreciative that, thanks to my brother, I got to know and spend some time with the great Bernie Parent. He wasn’t just number one on his Flyers uniform. He was also number one in everything else he did.
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8/23/2025
Little League World Series highlights importance of youth sports
It was a long time coming, but last week I finally made it to the Little League World Series, as a spectator more than a half-century after playing my last Little League game.
Back in the late 60s, my teammates and I heard about the Little League World Series, played only an hour away from home in Williamsport. Making it there became our goal, and we were told if we practiced daily, played hard and listened to our manager and coaches, there was no limit to what we could achieve.
The adults were simply encouraging us to play our best, but we took the Williamsport challenge to heart. There was no ESPN then, so the Little League games were not shown on TV like they are today. That did not matter to us; the Little League World Series still represented the big time.
It was during my third year in Little League playing for the Courtdale Cardinals that our team put everything together. We had strong pitching, good hitting and defense, and won games that we would have lost previously. We won the Luzerne-Courtdale-Pringle (LCP) league championship and several of our players made the All-Star team.
Combined with the best players from the other teams in our league, we felt our All-Stars were ready to take on the world. In our limited experience, we thought we had the right stuff and would win our way to the Little League World Series.
The optimism of youth is a marvelous thing.
In district competition, though, our pitchers were hit hard and our bats suddenly went silent. We lost right away and the dream of playing in Williamsport quickly disappeared. We faded even more the following year and that was it.
No Little League World Series. No Williamsport. No glory.
Winning is great, but years later we realized we won something bigger than a baseball tournament. We learned how to play the game correctly and, win or lose, to handle ourselves with dignity. We learned about teamwork, hustle and how to enjoy playing the game.
We were growing up, and we would carry those lessons with us forever.
That is what Little League, with its baseball, softball, and Challenger divisions, is all about. Little League believes in the power of youth baseball and softball to teach life lessons that build stronger individuals and communities.
As far as the Courtdale Cardinals team from long ago was concerned, that mission was more than accomplished, and we owed it all to our manager, Ted Napierkowski. Everyone called him Teddy in those days and everyone knew him.
Born without arms, Teddy used arm prostheses and never let his physical challenges stop him or even slow him down. Some of the players’ fathers — my dad, Carl Jolley, as well as Harry Johnson and Red Honoosic — were often at practices and games to help out, and Teddy appreciated the lending hand. But our manager took pride in leading our team.
Everyone on the Cardinals respected him. I can still see my teammates — my brother, Bob, as well as Jim and Jay Larson, Frank Oravitz, Jerry Leedock, Marty Pavill, Paul Honoosic and others — as we practiced or played games, picked up our equipment, brought in the bases and made sure everything was done right.
Whenever Teddy was thirsty, someone on the team would raise a cup of water for him and hold it in place until he was finished drinking. We didn’t have Gatorade back then either, but importantly we learned about the significance of helping one another.
Having no arms, it was impossible for Teddy to throw the ball to us, but somehow with a flick of his foot he would accurately kick the ball where it needed to go. He knew the game well, and after each contest we gathered to finish up the statistics in the scorebook and talk baseball.
Watching Teddy, we learned to never put any limitations on ourselves. If he could manage our team with his physical challenges, there was nothing we could not at least try to do.
Carl E. Stotz, the man who founded Little League Baseball in 1939, would have been proud of us. The first organized youth sports program in the world, Little League began with just three teams and 30 players in its first year. Now, approximately two million boys and girls play Little League worldwide. There are also about one million adult volunteers in every U.S. state and more than 80 countries who give their time and effort to benefit young people.
The Little League International Complex, which is actually located in South Williamsport, is impressive. The playing surfaces are comparable to big league fields, the facilities are first class, the kids themselves say the accommodations are great, and the teams compete but also honor and respect one another.
In 1953, pitcher Joey Jay became the first Little League graduate to play Major League Baseball. More than 60 confirmed Little League Baseball World Series graduates have gone on to play in the major leagues. Boog Powell (1954 LLBWS) is the first to play in the MLB World Series. Ed Vosberg (1973 LLBWS), Jason Varitek (1984 LLBWS), and Michael Conforto (2004 LLBWS) are the only three to also play in the MLB and College World Series. And Yusmeiro Petit (1994 LLBWS) is the only player to be on teams that have won both the Little League and MLB World Series (2014 with the San Francisco Giants).
More than 30 confirmed members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame played Little League baseball, including Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Palmer, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Cal Ripken, Jr., Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Joe Torre and CC Sabathia.
So the dream is still alive for kids everywhere, and that is right and good.
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8/2/2025
Allen, Parker finally home where they belong in Hall of Fame
It took a long time, but Dick Allen and Dave Parker are finally where they belong; inducted into and forever remembered at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
That it didn’t happen decades ago can only be attributed to the Hall of Fame’s arbitrary and subjective election process, but that argument is for another day. For now, the Allen and Parker families and their friends are relieved and gratified that their loved ones are being recognized for their tremendous talents and accomplishments.
Regretfully, neither baseball great is alive to enjoy the accolades. Allen passed away in December 2020 and Parker died in June. But as Parker’s son, Dave Jr., and Allen’s widow, Willa, spoke on their behalf, the estimated crowd of 30,000 could feel their presence.
“Although he is not physically here to accept this honor, I assure you he is with us,” Willa Allen said. “He is with the 350 family members and friends here today who have come to honor his life, his legacy and love of the game. And I know he is smiling now, knowing that his story is finally being recognized in this very special way.”
“A lot of players called (my dad) Pops, which is, of course, what I would call him,” Parker Jr. said. “Working on his speech during his final weeks, Pops wanted me to leave everyone with a poem that he wrote and gave me a long time ago. And he said if he ever made it here, to read it.”
The poem reads, in part, “Here I am … about damn time. I know I had to wait a little, but that’s what you do with fine-aged wine. … I’m in the Hall now, you can’t take that away. … I told y’all Cooperstown would be my last ride.”
Allen and Parker are prime examples of the Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee righting past wrongs. Now that both are Hall of Famers, future generations will be able to learn about them at the same time they are discovering Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Christy Mathewson, Mike Schmidt and other legends.
“To many of us, Dick was already a Hall of Famer,” Willa Allen said. “Not just for how he played, but for who he was. His statistics, impressive as they are, tell only part of the story. … He believed in lifting each other up and making the team better, together. And when he saw something wasn’t right, he didn’t stay quiet.”
When Allen approached management years ago about an underpaid teammate and was informed there was no money available to give that player a raise, he told the front office, “Well, give him some of mine.”
Then, there was the teenager waiting for an autograph outside Dodger Stadium in 1971. Allen befriended the young man and they remained close for the rest of Allen’s life.
“He affectionately nicknamed the boy ‘Baby Bro,’ a name that young man still uses today when he speaks of Dick,” Willa said. “And now, over 50 years later, that once-teenager is 70 years old and here today in Cooperstown to honor the man who changed his life with kindness.”
Allen batted .292 over a 15-year major league career with 1,848 hits, 351 home runs and 1,119 runs batted in. The 1964 National League Rookie of the Year with the Phillies, Allen won the 1972 American League Most Valuable Player award with the Chicago White Sox. A seven-time All-Star, he led the AL in home runs twice and was his league’s slugging percentage leader three times.
“His story’s not just about home runs or rewards, it’s about principle, compassion, unwavering determination,” Willa said. “That is what carried him through every challenge and every triumph. Dick would want this moment to inspire others to play with passion, to live with heart, and to always be true to yourself.”
Eric Davis, who played 17 seasons in the major leagues and attributes much of his success to Parker’s mentorship, said Parker knew he belonged in Cooperstown.
“Dave was disappointed during the years he wasn’t elected, but he knew he was a Hall of Famer and always said his time could come,” Davis said. “Jesus called him home before he could be inducted, but his time finally has come.”
Known as the Cobra, Parker played 19 years in the major leagues with 2,712 hits, 339 home runs, 1,493 runs batted in and a .290 batting average. A seven-time All-Star, he won three Gold Glove awards, three Silver Slugger awards, two National League batting titles and was the 1978 National League Most Valuable Player. His teams won six division championships and two World Series championships.
With those accomplishments, it is hard to believe the highest vote percentage Parker received from the Baseball Writers Association of America voters was a mere 24.5 percent in 1998. The highest vote percentage Allen received from the BBWAA electors was even lower, just 18.9 percent in 1996.
When Parker was traded to Oakland, then-A’s manager Tony La Russa told him, “I don’t care about all your numbers. I just want you here for the leadership. Teach these kids how to win.”
Billy Wagner, the hard-throwing relief pitcher who was also inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025, commented on Allen and Parker during his acceptance speech.
“Dick and Dave, you were more than your numbers, but those speak for themselves,” Wagner said. “Dick was a trailblazer facing challenges most of us can’t imagine. Dave brought strength and swagger during an era that demanded both. I’m honored to share this moment with your families and your legacies.”
“Thank you for finally bringing him home,” Willa Allen concluded her speech.
That sentiment goes for Dave Parker, too, and all the baseball legends enshrined in Cooperstown.
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7/5/2025
Independence Day has history of important sporting events, accomplishments
Independence Day is typically filled with pyrotechnics celebrating America, and many athletes have used the Fourth of July to provide their own fireworks.
• On July 4, 1910, a boxing match between heavyweight champion Jack Johnson and former champion James Jeffries was billed as the Fight of the Century. That name was used again 60 years later to promote the first fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali in 1971.
Jeffries returned to the ring following a six-year retirement to face Johnson. The title fight took place in Reno, Nevada, and incredibly was scheduled for 45 three-minute rounds. Jeffries — who set the record for the fastest knockout in a heavyweight title fight by knocking out Jack Finnegan in 45 seconds in 1900 — wilted in the 110 degree desert heat. Jackson dominated the fight and won it with a 15th round technical knockout.
• One of the most famous sports quotes of all time was said on July 4, 1939, when baseball great Lou Gehrig addressed the crowd in between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium.
Recently diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and knowing the disease’s dire prognosis, Gehrig stood and said, “Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.”
He received a two-minute standing ovation and the Yankees retired his uniform number 4. Gehrig was the first player to be honored by having his number retired and was inducted that same year into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Less than two years later, Gehrig, who listed his wife, in-laws, parents, fans and baseball associates among his many blessings, passed away on June 2, 1941. He was just 37 years old. And 86 years after his Luckiest Man speech, Gehrig’s words still inspire Major League Baseball and its teams to continue raising funds for advances in ALS research and treatment.
• The country was filled with excitement on July 4, 1976, as Americans celebrated the bicentennial anniversary of the United States. This was especially true in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Phillies catcher Tim McCarver came to bat on bicentennial day with the bases loaded and hit a ball over the fence for an apparent game-winning grand slam home run in game one of a doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Unfortunately, while running around the bases, McCarver passed teammate Garry Maddox. This is against the rules, so McCarver was called out and credited with a three-run single.
This miscue after hitting a grand slam is a rare occurrence. It happened previously on July 9, 1970, when Dalton Jones passed his Detroit Tigers teammate Don Wert on the basepaths after hitting what he thought was a grand slam.
The same type of play also ended Game 5 of the 1999 National League Championship Series on October 17, 1999, when the New York Mets’ Robin Ventura hit an apparent grand slam to beat the Atlanta Braves in 15 innings. Ventura was credited with a single when his teammate, Todd Pratt, the runner on first, lifted him up before either Pratt or Ventura could touch second base.
In the midst of the wild game-winning celebration, Ventura never completed his home run trot around the bases, and only Roger Cedeno, the runner on third base when Ventura hit the ball, scored before the on-field confusion. The Mets won the game 4-3 and Ventura batted in one run rather than four.
• Although the Wimbledon Tennis Championships are held at the All England Club near London, the two-week tournament often includes matches on the fourth of July.
The Gentlemen’s Final on July 4, 1982, featured two of the best players in the world — fiery Americans Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, who put on a show for the ages. They played five epic sets including two sets decided by tie breaks before Connors won a back-and-forth fifth set to become a two-time Wimbledon champion, 6-3, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.
Sisters Venus and Serena Williams played an All-American Wimbledon Ladies Final on July 4, 2009. Serena won the first set in a tiebreak and the championship match in straight sets, 7-6 and 6-2.
• It was July 4, 1983, when Yankees pitcher Dave Righetti warmed up for an independence day start against the team’s rival Boston Red Sox. Annoyed at not being named to the American League All-Star team, Righetti was a man on a mission in his final start before the All-Star break.
With the fans in a holiday mood despite the 94-degree day, Righetti threw a 132-pitch no hitter. It was the first Yankee no-hitter since Don Larsen’s perfect game over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, and the first by a Yankee left-handed pitcher since 1917.
• Before the days of Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, stock car racing was ruled by Richard Petty. Nicknamed The King, Petty raced from 1958 to 1992.
It was on July 4, 1984, when Petty, driving the famous STP number 43, won the Firecracker 400 race at Daytona. It was the 200th and final Winston Cup race victory in his illustrious career; an exclamation point for an American racing hero on Independence Day.
Over his long, 35-year racing career, Petty competed in 1,184 races. In addition to his 200 wins, he won the pole position 123 times and earned 712 top-10 finishes.
Other notable Independence Day performances include Nolan Ryan’s 3,000th strikeout in 1980, Phil Niekro’s 3,000th strikeout in 1984, Billy Wagner’s 300th save in 2006 and Albert Pujols’ 300th home run in 2008.
How is that for some impressive fireworks?
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5/24/2025
15 pro baseball players who made the ultimate sacrifice
We call it old-fashioned, situational baseball when teams bunt or intentionally hit the ball to the right side of the field to advance baserunners. It’s called “sacrificing” for the benefit of the team. The batter most often makes an out while the runners on base move forward.
On a much larger scale, this Memorial Day we remember the ultimate sacrifice made by approximately 1.3 million defenders of our freedom who died while serving in the United States military.
Fifteen of those heroes played professional baseball in the major leagues and negro leagues.
Major Robert “Bob” Neighbors, the last major leaguer to die in combat, led his crew on a night mission over North Korea on August 8, 1952, when their B-26 bomber aircraft was hit by enemy fire. They never returned.
Prior to enlisting in the Army Air Corps in 1942, Neighbors was a professional baseball player who appeared in seven games for the 1939 St. Louis Browns. At the end of World War II, Neighbors could have returned to baseball. Instead, he made the Air Force his career; a decision that cost him his life.
Two major league players, Harry O’Neill and Elmer Gideon, died while serving during World War II.
A three-sport star growing up in Pennsylvania – baseball, basketball, and football – O’Neill signed a contract with the Philadelphia Athletics after graduating from high school in June 1939 and spent the rest of the baseball season as the A’s third-string catcher. He made his only major league appearance on July 23 as a late-inning defensive replacement in a lopsided 16-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. First Lieutenant O’Neill was involved in two amphibious assaults in the Pacific Theater and killed by sniper’s fire during the Battle of Iwo Jima on March 6, 1945.
Gideon played in five games as an outfielder with the Washington Senators from September 18-24, 1939, batting .200 with three hits, two bases on balls, one run batted in, and one run scored. He spent the 1940 season in the minor leagues and was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Force in 1941.
A bomber pilot, Gideon was killed on April 20, 1944, when the B-26 he was piloting was shot down over France. He was a three-sport star at the University of Michigan – baseball, football, and track and field – and passed up an opportunity to be a member of the U.S. Track Team in the 1940 Summer Olympics.
Three Negro League players passed away from illness while serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. Private Ted Kimbro, a third-baseman, died on Sept. 19, 1918, at Fort Dix, New Jersey; Private Norman Triplett, an outfielder, died on Oct. 20, 1918, in France; and Corporal Pearl “Specks” Webster, a catcher, died on Nov. 16, 1918, in France. They were likely casualties of the Spanish Flu influenza pandemic.
Eight major league players died during World War I.
Right-hand pitcher Bun Troy started one game for the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 15, 1912, pitching six and two-third innings and giving up six runs on nine hits, three bases on balls, and one batter hit by pitch. He held the Senators scoreless for the first six innings. Born in Germany, Troy grew up in western Pennsylvania and joined the U.S. Army. Sergeant Troy was shot in the chest and died in France on October 7, 1918.
Eddie Grant made his major league debut on Aug. 4, 1905, with the Cleveland Naps and played his final game with the New York Giants on Oct. 6, 1915. He also played for the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds and had a career .249 batting average with 844 hits, 277 RBI, and 153 stolen bases.
Grant enlisted in the U.S. Army in April 1917, and served with the 77th Infantry Division. Captain Grant was killed by an exploding shell on Oct. 5, 1918, in France, the first major leaguer to be killed in action in World War I.
Alexander “Tom” Burr played center field in one game for the New York Yankees on April 21, 1914, but did not bat and had no chances in the field. He was killed on Oct. 12, 1918, in an airplane crash while training with the U.S. Air Service in France.
Ralph “Billy” Sharman played in 13 games for the 1917 Philadelphia Athletics, batting .297 with 11 hits, two doubles, one triple, and two RBIs. Corporal Sharman drowned in a training exercise in Alabama on May 24, 1918.
Newt Halliday, who had one at-bat with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1916, joined the U.S. Navy and died from tuberculosis on April 6, 1918.
Harry Glenn hit .313 in six games for the 1915 St. Louis Cardinals before being drafted into the army in August 1918. An aviation mechanic, he died from pneumonia on Oct. 12, 1918, in Minnesota.
Larry Chappell batted .226 for the 1913-15 Chicago White Sox, 1916 Cleveland Indians, and 1916-17 Boston Braves. He then joined the Army Medical Corps in San Francisco, where he contracted influenza and died on Nov. 8, 1918.
Catcher Harry Chapman played sparingly for the 1912 Chicago Cubs, 1913 Cincinnati Reds and 1916 St. Louis Browns before joining the U.S. Army in 1917. He died from influenza on Oct. 21, 1918.
Twelve-year-old Bill Stearns served during the Civil War, likely as a drummer or messenger, before pitching in the majors from 1871 to 1875. He volunteered at age 45 in 1898 to serve in the Spanish-American War, became ill while landing in Puerto Rico in September, and died on Dec. 30, 1898, in Washington, D.C.
We owe these baseball players, everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice, and their loved ones, our deepest gratitude, honor and everlasting respect.
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5/3/2025
Celebrate Red Sox’s Duran for his bravery in sharing mental health struggles
As the baseball season moves into May, Mental Health Awareness Month, outfielder Jarren Duran of the Boston Red Sox has already proven he deserves serious consideration for this year’s Roberto Clemente Award.
After all, the Clemente award celebrates a player “who demonstrates the values Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente displayed in his commitment to community and understanding the value of helping others.”
That sure sounds like Jarren Duran, especially after he bravely and selflessly made his mental health struggles public in a recently released Netflix documentary, “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox.”
In episode four of the eight-part series, “Staying Alive,” Duran tells his personal mental health story of negative thinking, poor self-image, depression and attempted suicide three years ago.
He was not doing well in 2022, having trouble learning how to play the outfield after growing up as an infielder. He was misjudging fly balls, losing them in the sun and making poor throws back to the infield. His misadventures in the outfield affected his ability to concentrate at the plate, so his hitting also suffered.
Many of the hometown fans made things worse by jeering and belittling Duran each day — in person at Fenway Park, during sports radio talk shows and on social media. The louder the noise, the worse he felt, and he went as far as loading his gun, pointing it toward himself, and pulling the trigger.
He heard the gun click, but for some reason it did not fire.
In time, Duran took that as a sign he was supposed to continue living his life, and with plenty of effort and help, his mental health improved. So did his baseball career and he is now known for his consistent and valuable defense, batting and baserunning. He is “in a good place now” and a solid and positive presence in the clubhouse.
“A few years ago, I found myself in a dark place, but I’m still here, and I’m so lucky I am,” Duran said in a statement released by the Red Sox. “And if my story can help even one person, then it was worth telling.”
Despite a misguided fan in Cleveland last week yelling derogatory remarks about Duran’s suicide attempt, the response to his openness and willingness to help others is being well received. Samaritans, Inc., a suicide prevention and mental health services center in Boston, reported recent volume three times higher than before Duran’s story was released.
Duran hopes his willingness to share his personal experience with depression will encourage even more people to talk about their mental health.
“Ask for help,” he wrote on social media. “I know it’s not easy. I never wanted to ask anyone for help because I felt like I was a bother … but it’s never going to be a bother to them to ask for help.”
Duran is not the first Red Sox player to suffer from mental health issues and tell his story to the public.
Jimmy Pearsall, who played for the Scranton Red Sox in the minor leagues, had a 17-year major league career, primarily with Boston beginning in 1950. He willingly shared the story of his erratic and volatile behavior, bipolar disorder diagnosis and being hospitalized in a mental health facility in 1952 for what was then known as nervous exhaustion or manic depression.
There was a stigma about mental disorders at that time, and Pearsall sharing his personal experiences helped bring attention to mental health issues and increased public understanding. He wrote a book, “Fear Strikes Out,” that was later made into a motion picture, and used humor to talk about his illness.
As a result, the sensitive topic of mental illness became more readily discussed. Thanks to Pearsall’s efforts, many erroneous stereotypes about people with mental health conditions have been corrected. Pearsall passed away at age 87 in 2017, but the work he started continues.
Additional players over the years who struggled with various mental health conditions such as anxiety, social/performance anxiety and depression, include Joey Votto, Andrelton Simmons, Hong-Chih Kuo, Kahlil Greene, Dontrelle Willis, Zack Greinke, Milton Bradley and Ian Snell, among others. Hopefully their experiences, too, are helping people open up and seek treatment.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, “an estimated 26 percent of Americans ages 18 and older – about one in four adults – suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time.”
The incidence for children and adolescents is up to 20 percent.
“It’s that ability to help, to reach those who feel alone, that motivated me to tell my story,” Duran said. “I am grateful for the tremendous support I’ve received. If you’re struggling, please know there’s help. You can call a friend, a trusted person, your doctor, or an organization like Samaritans. And, if you’re in immediate danger, call 988.”
Meanwhile, great things continue to happen on the baseball field. Eugenio Suarez of the Arizona Diamondbacks recently became the 19th player in major league history to hit four home runs in a single game. That’s less frequent than the 24 official perfect games on the record books.
Aaron Judge celebrated his 33rd birthday on April 26 with the third highest offensive production by that age. The two players more productive than Judge at age 33 were none other than baseball royalty Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. That is some excellent company.
Wonderful accomplishments, for sure. But Jarren Duran being open and vulnerable about his mental health challenges and suicide attempt makes them pale in comparison.
It’s really all about life and living it well. So help wherever you can.
NOTE: Calls and texts to 988 and 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) are all connected to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For more information, visit fcc.gov/988-suicide-and-crisis-lifeline.
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4/5/2025
Are torpedo bats MLB’s version of football’s tush push?
The major league baseball season has begun, and with star players like Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and Bryce Harper in action, it is incredible the name everyone is talking about is Aaron Leanhardt.
Before opening day, few baseball fans heard of Leanhardt. Several home runs later, the inventor of the torpedo bat is top of mind and his fame is increasing.
Currently a field coordinator with the Miami Marlins, Leanhardt began working on the torpedo bat while serving as assistant minor league hitting coordinator with the New York Yankees in 2022-23. His job there was to work with the analytics department and coaches, utilizing data to improve on-field performance.
Interacting with players and staff, Leanhardt focused on the part of the bat where various players most often make contact. He then began experimenting with redistributing the weight and diameter, so contact would more consistently be at the so-called “sweet spot.” Many additional players are opting for a torpedo bat, and that is creating a firestorm about whether or not the bat should be allowed in major league games.
As expected, those in favor and those opposed to torpedo bats have come out of the woodwork. Proponents say the torpedo design is a brilliant use of analytics and well within major league baseball rules; simply another in a long line of innovations over the years as the game evolves. It is the intelligent use of science to increase the batter’s ability to hit the ball on the barrel of the bat and potentially reduce the number of swings and misses.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the Yankees began using a torpedo bat this season and hit three home runs in his first 16 at-bats. The Yankees pounded Milwaukee in the season-opening three-game sweep, hitting 15 home runs and scoring an impressive 36 runs. Overall, the Yankees hit nine torpedo bat homers against the Brewers.
Naturally, Chisholm’s a big fan of the new technology.
“Okay, explanation, the barrel is bigger and within MLB regulation,” he recently posted on social media. “You must move the wood from the parts you don’t use to the parts you do.”
Aaron Judge, using his traditional bat, homered four times against the Brewers, becoming the first Yankee to hit four home runs in his team’s first three games. The major league record of five home runs in a team’s first three games was set by Adrian Gonzalez for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2015.
It seems Judge is such a prolific home run hitter he doesn’t need a torpedo bat to help him.
New York set a franchise record with the 15 homers in their first three games this year, which tied the major league record set by the 2006 Detroit Tigers. Perhaps the discussion should be more about Milwaukee’s pitching staff than torpedo bats. Of course, it was just three games, and time will tell.
Among those claiming the torpedo bats are damaging baseball’s integrity is Barstool Sports founder and Boston Red Sox fan Dave Portnoy, who refers to them as Godzilla bats. Portnoy makes much of his living by encouraging controversy and could just be stoking the fire. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith had a blunt response on First Take about the torpedo bat, saying, “It ain’t illegal.”
Brewers closer Trevor Megill thinks torpedo bats are terrible for the game but admits the innovation is genius. Brewers starter Nestor Cortes, a former Yankee who was hit hard for eight earned runs against New York, dismissed the effect of the torpedo bats and said he was ineffective against the Yankees because his former teammates know him and his pitching tendencies so well.
It is already being reported unnamed front office sources are floating the idea that the torpedo bat will at some point be banned from baseball. From all of the yelling and gnashing of teeth, you would swear MLB is now using the tush push play the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles have perfected to practically guarantee making first downs on short yardage situations.
There is currently an effort introduced by the Green Bay Packers to outlaw the tush push in the NFL. Owners were supposed to vote on the proposed rule change at the recent Annual League Meeting but tabled the vote until possibly May.
That seems strange since the owners did approve spotting the football on the 35 yard line rather than the 30 on touchbacks, aligning the postseason and regular season overtime rules so both teams have an opportunity to possess the ball no matter the outcome of the first team’s possession, and expanding instant replay to inform on-field officials regarding specific plays when “clear and obvious video evidence is present.”
Is tabling the vote on the tush push an effort by the league to have more time to lobby owners to ban the play? The Packers claim the play is dangerous and results in increased injuries, but Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie says the injury data does not support that assertion.
The tush push play is available to every team in the NFL, but only the Eagles, through hard work and execution, are expert at running it. That’s no reason to ban the play. Other teams have to work harder to master it.
Likewise, torpedo bats are available to every major league team and many players throughout baseball are using them. That’s fair, and it’s way too early to call for banning this new technology.
Whether it’s advanced equipment, the dimensions of the playing field, the height of the pitcher’s mound, or the length of the grass, changes are nothing new to sports. Both the tush push and the torpedo bat must remain legal unless considerable, definitive, unbiased evidence proves either are detrimental to player safety and the sports’ integrity.
In the meantime, enjoy watching the games.
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2/22/2025
Saquon Barkley, Alex Ovechkin, and other record-setting performances
The Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles rested star running back Saquon Barkley for the team’s final regular season game early in January even though he was well within reach of setting an NFL record for most yards rushing in his first year in Philadelphia.
Even so, he finished the regular season with 2,005 yards, the most ever in Eagles history.
The team had bigger goals in mind and wanted Barkley healthy and well rested for the playoffs. That strategy definitely paid off as the Eagles tore through the postseason and beat the Kansas City Chiefs decisively in the Super Bowl. Along the way, Barkley set new NFL combined regular season and playoffs records for most rushing yards with 2,504 and most combined yards from scrimmage with 2,857.
Saquon is perhaps the greatest NFL free agent signing in history. Still, certain records in the world of sports are considered so impressive they will likely never be surpassed.
Pitcher Cy Young’s 511 wins, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ 23 gold medals, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain’s 50.4 points per game season, Rickey Henderson’s 1,406 career stolen bases, Cal Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive games played, Jerry Rice’s 22,895 career receiving yards, and Yankee great Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak – to name a few. All are well ahead of any competition for their records.
That’s what makes Barkley’s accomplishments so exceptional. And it is also what makes the Washington Capitals’ perennial all-star Alex Ovechkin’s chase toward the NHL record for most goals scored in a career so exciting. Ovechkin entered Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins with 879 goals, needing only 16 more to break Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894 goals scored.
At the end of his playing career, Gretzky’s records seemed certain to last forever, but as so many have said, “Records are made to be broken.” Some do.
It now seems inevitable the 39-year-old Russian will break Gretzky’s goals record, if not this year than next season. Gretzky can relax, knowing his record 2,857 career points – goals and assists added together – is 936 points more than second place Jaromir Jagr with 1,921 points. Ovechkin is well below Gretzky in career points, currently with 1,593.
While Ovechkin is known for scoring goals, Gretzky is remembered for having a sixth sense to know not only where his teammates and the puck were, but also where they were going.
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” he explained back during his playing days. “I get a feeling where a teammate is going to be. A lot of times, I can turn and pass without even looking.”
There is definitely room for both Ovechkin and Gretzky on hockey’s Mount Rushmore.
As the hockey season nears Stanley Cup playoff time, major and minor league baseball players have started spring training in Florida and Arizona. Several players are within reach of personal milestones as the 2025 regular season unfolds.
Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels needs 22 home runs to reach 400 in his career. He likely would already be over that number except for the numerous injuries that have plagued him throughout the past few seasons.
The Angels announced last week the 33-year-old Trout is moving from his longtime center field position to play right field this year in an effort to put less wear and tear on his body. When healthy, Trout is among the best players in the game. If he can stay in the lineup, 400 home runs are well within reach.
Giancarlo Stanton, designated hitter for the New York Yankees, is 21 home runs shy of 450 in his career. Similar to Trout, Stanton has often been injured, and is currently out indefinitely with tendinitis in both elbows. He currently is unable to swing a bat and the Yankee medical staff has not provided a timetable for his return. If he gets back in time for about 425 at-bats, he should hit enough home runs to attain the 450 milestone.
Then there is Manny Machado of the San Diego Padres, who needs 100 hits to reach 2,000 for his career. The durable Machado is well-known for playing every day, and if he does so again this year it appears he will celebrate joining Jose Altuve, Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt, and Andrew McCutchen as the only active players with 2,000 or more hits.
Not to be left out, there are three significant career pitching milestones we may see happen this season. Both Justin Verlander of the San Francisco Giants and Max Scherzer of the Toronto Blue Jays are within striking distance of 3,500 strikeouts.
Verlander needs 84 strikeouts and Scherzer 93 to attain that lofty goal. Verlander, age 42, and Scherzer, 40, are likely nearing the end of their Hall of Fame worthy careers, so the clock is ticking. If they stay free from injuries, though, 3,500 strikeouts seem possible.
Clayton Kershaw of the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers recently signed a contract to return to LA for his 18th major league season. He needs just 32 strikeouts to reach 3,000 in his career. Kershaw has played his entire time with the Dodgers and has the opportunity to become the 20th pitcher in major league history to strikeout 3,000 batters. Again, staying free from injuries will determine if he succeeds.
Fans of all sports often debate the most difficult records to break. When asked this question, my response is a record that can be broken in just three baseball games. Cincinnati’s Johnny
Vander Meer pitched back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. To break that one, a pitcher needs to pitch three consecutive no-hit games.
There have been only 326 no-hitters, including 24 official perfect games, over 154 major league seasons and 238,500 games. Three in a row would be highly improbable.
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2/1/2025
Unconscious bias or not, Chiefs regularly get help from officials
Super Bowl LIX is set for a rematch between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, who also met two years ago in the NFL’s biggest game. With the Chiefs looking to win three consecutive Super Bowls and Saquon Barkley of the Eagles making history every week, the focus should be on the game itself.
That’s what the NFL is all about, right?
Instead, attention is again on the officiating and how KC seems to benefit from close calls that can make the difference between winning and losing.
It happened again in the AFC Championship game on a third down play when KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes lofted a pass intended for Xavier Worthy near the goal line. Worthy was battling with Buffalo defender Cole Bishop on the play, and it was difficult to determine which player came down with the ball. The official ruled a catch by Worthy that put the Chiefs on the doorstep of scoring another touchdown before halftime.
Thinking the Bills intercepted the pass, Buffalo fans immediately looked for a penalty on the play and were not surprised to see the yellow flag appear. Buffalo’s Damar Hamlin was called for defensive holding, well away from the play on the other side of the field.
With the ruled completion, the Chiefs declined the penalty, but Bills coach Sean McDermott challenged the ruling on the field of a catch. He felt, as did the coaches upstairs looking at the video, the ball hit the ground and was incomplete.
Despite the nose of the ball clearly hitting the turf, the review officials allowed the call on the field of a completed pass to stand. Mahomes ran the ball in for a touchdown and the Chiefs took an 11-point lead. Kansas City won the game 32-29 and along with it, the AFC championship. That ruling had a significant impact on the outcome.
The Chiefs are an excellent team with tremendous players and coaching. Head coach Andy Reid is the best in the business, and he, Mahomes and Travis Kelce will no doubt all be Hall of Famers. It is unfortunate their impressive accomplishments are blurred by questions about the Chiefs receiving special treatment and their opponents facing unfair playing conditions.
Need more food for thought? Matt Sidney, writing in Ebony Bird, a publication covering the Baltimore Ravens, recently did an article about Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson’s poor treatment from the officials. Sidney reports in eight career playoff games, Jackson has been hit 49 times as a passer without even one roughing penalty being called.
Defenders rushing Mahomes, meanwhile, have been flagged for roughing the passer seven times. Mahomes and the Chiefs benefit from a roughing call once for every 15 hits. That’s an incredible difference.
It isn’t just Jackson, either, getting no love from the officials. According to Sidney, Buffalo’s Josh Allen got a roughing call just once in 32 playoff hits as a passer; Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions one call out of 52 hits; Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, zero calls out of 52 hits; and Matthew Stafford of the Rams, zero calls out of 42 hits.
Jalen Hurts of the Eagles, Mahomes’ opponent in Super Bowl LIX, has also never benefited from a roughing call despite being hit 35 times while passing the ball in the playoffs.
Here’s another interesting statistic ESPN brought to life last week. Kansas City has played in 11 playoff games over the past four years and has never been called for more penalties than their opponents in any of those games. The teams playing the Chiefs have been flagged for more penalties 10 times, and the Chiefs and 49ers came out even in last year’s Super Bowl.
Then there is Warren Sharp of SharpFootballAnalysis.com, who points out the Chiefs’ playoff opponents over the past four seasons have been called for defensive pass interference or defensive holding 11 times. The Chiefs were flagged only twice.
Sharp also shared that the Chiefs benefited from seven roughing the passer calls during this time while their defense was only penalized one time for roughing the opposing quarterback. There were also four unnecessary roughness penalties on KC’s opponents, and just one on KC.
Are the Chiefs that much better than their opponents by not committing penalties? Perhaps. Or are the officials, even not consciously, making calls in the Chiefs’ favor to benefit the team and ensure Mahomes’ safety? You make the call, but it is likely a combination of the two.
Many people also believe the NFL wants Kansas City to win for even higher TV ratings and the inevitable shots of Taylor Swift cheering for Kelce and his teammates. The Super Bowl already has a gigantic audience, but the NFL can and should make changes to clear things up.
There are suggestions for computer chips to be placed in the footballs, so accurate calls can be made about first down measurements and the ball crossing the plane of the goal line for a touchdown. The chip could also be useful to confirm whether a ball was caught or hit the ground. The NFL is reportedly studying this technology now.
The NFL should also uniformly make all league officials full-time employees. That way, officials can spend the offseason officiating virtual games to further hone their skills. They can also benefit from additional educational programming such as unconscious bias training.
Sitting in a room of about 600 people at an unconscious bias presentation, I was amazed when half the room identified a photo of a cat when my half of the room was convinced it was a dog. The Roman poet, Ovid, wrote, “The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all.” Without education and training exercises, we are unaware of the factors that make us see things differently.
May Super Bowl LIX be decided fairly without any help from the officials, intentionally or not. We deserve nothing less.
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1/11/2025
The time is now to improve what’s wrong in college and pro football
With the major college football and NFL playoffs underway, it’s a good time to contemplate things needing improvement in these particular sports. NIL, scheduling and officiating top the list.
We’ve all heard the phrase, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” When it comes to major college and NFL football, it’s more like let’s fix what isn’t broken and ignore what needs to be fixed.
That is often the way fans feel when spending their hard-earned money and time to watch games. Many things are broken, have not been fixed, and perhaps never will be corrected. But the games and the money they generate go merrily onward.
At first glance, the NIL regulation allowing student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness seems like a good idea. It is impractical to have college football players spend extra time in work-study programs around campus each week to earn a few dollars when they already spend 20 or more hours of their busy schedules practicing and playing football and generating revenue for their schools.
That is where the NIL discussion began, but it soon gathered warp speed and now we have millions of dollars committed by colleges, universities and their donors to attract and retain the best players. As a result, the top players have enough money not only to go out for a pizza, but they can also afford to buy the restaurant.
NIL fuels the top programs, is detrimental to others, and the NCAA can’t put the horse back in the barn. So, buckle up.
The top two quarterbacks at Texas were estimated to be worth $11.1 million this year in NIL money between Longhorns’ starter Quinn Ewers ($4.5 million) and backup Arch Manning ($6.6 million). No wonder Manning decided to remain in Texas as the backup. It’s a profitable place to be, though certainly not the only one.
Major college football is no longer the amateur college football fans knew and loved before NIL. It is now another level of professional football, at least for the star players who pull down the big money.
Other players projected to be the top 10 NIL earners in valuations calculated by on3.com are Colorado teammates Shedeur Sanders ($6.5M) and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter ($5.7M); Florida quarterback DJ Lagway ($3.7M); Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith ($3.7M); Penn State quarterback Drew Allar ($3.6M); LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier ($3.6M); South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers ($3.4M); and Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik ($3.3M).
Playing quarterback is the fastest path to the vault, as eight of the top ten are quarterbacks. Only Hunter (cornerback/wide receiver) and Smith play other positions. I’ve always felt football games are won and lost in the trenches, but the highest linemen among top estimated NIL earners are Xavier Chaplin, offensive tackle, of Virginia Tech, who is listed 26th at $1.7 million, and South Carolina edge rusher Dylan Stewart, at 29th at $1.6 million. Ohio State safety Caleb Downs is 16th at $2.3 million.
Given the risk of injury and the potential to lose millions of dollars if unable to play professionally, the ability for college athletes to capitalize on their name, image, and likeness serves as an effective way to ensure they profit in some way from their hard work and effort.
At the same time, the NCAA does not have an effective way to oversee NIL agreements between colleges and players. This results in chaos likely to get worse before it gets better. Already, we have players refusing to play, and even transferring to another school, because they were not paid the amount of money they were promised when they were being recruited.
With the disparity between the “haves and the have nots” among programs and also between individual players, there are bound to be internal issues. It’s human nature to believe you are worth more money than the player sitting next to you. Something has to give to ensure fair competition moving forward.
More than ever, college football needs to have someone clearly in charge to oversee and manage this mess.
Meanwhile, NFL scheduling continues to be terrible. While the league changes kickoff and other rules in the interest of player safety, it continues to put players at risk with ridiculous schedules. The Pittsburgh Steelers recently played three games within 11 days and look nothing like the team did before that grueling stretch.
Players cannot recover so quickly from the physical stress, exhaustion, soreness, bruises, and injuries that result from the game of football. Such scheduling is not fair to players nor the fans, but as long as the league profits soar there is little incentive for the league to do better. It is clearly all about the money.
Speaking of terrible, inconsistent officiating continues to be an issue. Despite the difficulty of doing this job well, the NFL uses many part-time officials.
The time is well past due for all NFL officials to become full-time employees who, when not working actual games, can hone their skills by virtually officiating previous games and computer-generated contests. Paying officials attractive wages to concentrate on their craft full-time will only help improve morale and performance.
The NFL supposedly has an officiating improvement plan. That an improvement plan even exists offers at least slight hope for better officiating to come. Expect interesting contract negotiations when the officials’ current collective bargaining agreement ends in May 2026.
More than ever, big money rules the NFL and major college football, and the fans are last in line. Perhaps it is time to pay more attention to Division III sports where the athletes play for the love of the game, not clouded by an ongoing quest for adulation, fame and fortune.
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2024
11/16/2024
If at first you don’t succeed … Dick Allen and Baseball’s Hall of Fame
As the wise sage and baseball great Yogi Berra observed, “It’s like deja vu, all over again.” He could have been talking about the election process for the Baseball Hall of Fame, especially when it comes to Dick Allen.
It reminds me of Phil Connors, the weatherman played by Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, who was forced to live the same day over and over until he finally got it right. We have been down this road before, and twice Dick Allen missed out on being elected by one vote. Remember that whenever you think about not voting in any election.
Eligible players, managers, umpires and executives are first considered for election to the Hall of Fame by voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) and may remain on the ballot for up to 10 years if their vote totals merit further consideration.
The Hall of Fame added various committees to consider those with great credentials who were not elected by the writers, as well as players from the Negro Leagues who were not previously considered.
When the Golden Era Committee met and voted on eligible candidates in December 2014, Allen and former Minnesota Twins outfielder Tony Oliva each missed being elected by just one vote. Six years later, the committee, by then renamed the Golden Days Committee (1950-69), elected Oliva to the Hall of Fame but again failed by a single vote to enshrine Allen.
The word prior to the announcement in December 2020 was that Allen, having come so close before and having credentials so similar to Oliva, would also garner that extra vote and join him in Cooperstown. Once again, that did not happen.
Allen played 15 seasons in the major leagues (1963-77), nine with the Philadelphia Phillies, with 1,848 hits, 351 home runs, 1,119 RBIs, and had a career .292 average. He was a complete player who also fielded multiple positions, ran the bases swiftly and effectively, scored 1,099 runs and had a strong throwing arm until suffering a shoulder injury.
Allen won the 1964 National League Rookie of the Year award, the 1972 American League Most Valuable Player award and was a seven-time All-Star.
In comparison, eight-time All-Star Oliva played 15 years (1962-76), was the 1963 American League Rookie of the Year, 1966 American League Gold Glove award winner and had 1,917 hits, a career batting average of .304, with 220 home runs, 947 RBIs and 870 runs scored. He led the American League in batting average three times.
Yet one is in the Hall of the Fame and the other is not.
Allen compares favorably — either equal to or better than — numerous players already enshrined in Cooperstown. He ranks 70th in the insightful Black Ink Test that measures how often players led their league in a number of important statistical categories. That is better than at least 33 current members of the Hall of Fame, including several of his contemporaries, including Ernie Banks (73rd), Lou Brock (76th), Roberto Clemente (88th), Johnny Bench (109th), Billy Williams (132nd) and Willie Stargell (142nd).
As a Black man playing during the volatile 1960s, he stood up to the extreme racism he experienced, and many believe it was his perceived rebellious persona that has prevented his election to the Hall of Fame. Those who knew him — friends, teammates and opponents alike — insist he was a great, humble, funny and supportive man.
“I watched him interact with his teammates on the Phillies, quietly offer advice to stars such a Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa and Greg Luzinski, and spend hours talking with and helping young players you’ve never heard of,” said Mark Carfagno, who served many years on the Phillies’ groundcrew, was befriended by Allen and was the driving force behind the creation of the “Dick Allen Belongs in the Hall of Fame” movement. “It’s a gross misrepresentation to describe Dick as a malcontent and bad teammate.”
“My father was perhaps the most misunderstood man in the history of professional sport,” Richard Allen Jr. said. “He somehow developed a reputation as a bad teammate, a guy who caused trouble in the clubhouse. I’ve come to understand, though, that he was a dedicated ballplayer whose actions were often misinterpreted.
“Why else would Hall-of-Famer Goose Gossage call him the best teammate he ever played with? Why else would Phillies manager Gene Mauch insist my dad never caused a problem? Why else would the Phillies invite him back to help their young players adjust to playoff competition? And why else would he be credited with saving the Chicago White Sox franchise with his MVP season in 1972?”
Willie Mays said, “Allen was and still is a Hall-of -Famer as far as I’m concerned.”
Mike Schmidt calls Allen “one of the most talented, intimidating, smart, well-rounded, five-tool players in history.”
Tony Perez refers to Allen as “a good friend, great guy, and true gentleman.”
And Chuck Tanner, Allen’s manager with the White Sox, paid him the ultimate compliment, saying, “Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every day as if it was his last day on earth.”
Allen’s last day on earth was Dec. 7, 2020, just as Oliva was announced as the Hall of Fame’s newest member. The Hall now has another opportunity to make things right. Joining Allen on the classic era ballot are Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris, Tommy John, Dave Parker and Luis Tiant.
All are worthy of consideration, but it is definitely Richard “Dick” Allen’s time. In fact, he is past due. Let’s hope the committee finally elects him to his rightful place among baseball’s immortals.
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11/2/2024
Freddie Freeman, families, and the highs and lows of the baseball season
It has been said many times the Major League Baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint, and there is nobody better to exemplify that than Freddie Freeman of the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
When Freeman accepted the Series’ Most Valuable Player award last week, it was the latest in a string of events this year that ultimately turned out well for the perennial all-star first-baseman and likely future Hall of Famer.
He ended the regular season limping around on a bad ankle and was later found to also have an injured rib. He had to wonder how effective he would be in the playoffs, and his father even told him he was too injured to play.
Fortunately for Freddie, the Dodgers had the best record in major league baseball and a first round bye that gave him an extra week to receive medical treatment.
He was still physically limited as the National League Division Series between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres began and only played sparingly.
Still hobbled to a degree, he did not have a good National League Championship Series against the New York Mets, getting just three hits in 18 at-bats and a low .167 batting average with one RBI.
That all changed beginning with Game 1 of the World Series against the New York Yankees when Freeman dramatically gave Los Angeles the win with a walk-off grand slam – the first in World Series history.
He kept hitting home runs through the first four games of the Series. Combined with homers in the last two games of the 2021 World Series while playing for the Atlanta Braves, Freeman set a new record of six consecutive World Series games with a home run.
Throughout the five games against the Yankees, Freeman batted .300 with four home runs and a record-setting 12 RBIs, clearly earning him the MVP honor.
In typical fashion during the postgame awards ceremony, Freddie pointed to the World Series trophy and said that was the important one, the one that signified team success.
He couldn’t have knocked in 12 runs, he observed, without his teammates being on base when he came to the plate. Nobody who knows Freddie was surprised by him putting other people before himself.
Freeman’s biggest test this past season, though, was a personal one that began during the All-Star break in July when his young son, Max, developed a viral infection that prevented the youngster from standing or walking without experiencing pain.
Doctors originally diagnosed Max with transient synovitis from the viral infection, but when Max’s condition worsened to include full body paralysis, it was determined he had a severe case of Guillain-Barre syndrome.
This rare neurological autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system attacks the nerves — even more rare in children — resulted in Max being put on a ventilator to assist with breathing.
Freddie, of course, took an emergency leave from the Dodgers, so he and his wife, Chelsea, could be at their son’s bedside around the clock. Fortunately, Max’s condition improved and he was again able to breathe on his own.
It has been a long recovery, and it was not until October that Max, with plenty of physical therapy, was able to show his neurologist he could once again walk. When something like this happens and your child gets better following a critical illness, it is infinitely more important than winning sports championships and MVP awards.
I am a lifelong Philadelphia Phillies fan, but Freddie Freeman has long been one of my favorite players. He has beaten my Phillies so many times over the years, but his overall professionalism, tremendous play, total effort and humanity more than earned my respect. I consider it an unfortunate circumstance he happened to play the bulk of his career with the Braves.
The ultimate compliment you can give is to say you wish an opposing player was on your team. Freeman is that kind of player, teammate and fan favorite.
Baseball is the sport of parents and children playing catch in the yard and going to games together. Perhaps it is because it is a summer game with a 162-game schedule, played mostly when the kids are out of school and the weather is good, but baseball and family just seem to fit so well.
Family is paramount to Freeman. His mom passed away when he was 10 years old and his dad later survived a life-threatening medical issue. Mr. Freeman played an integral role in Freddie’s development as a person and a baseball player, and he was at game five to see his son become a world series champion for the second time with an overall performance for the ages.
My friend, Matt Van Stone, grew up in Connecticut before coming to Pennsylvania and pitching for the King’s College baseball team. A lifelong Yankees fan, he remembers well going to games in the Bronx with his dad.
When Matt became my work colleague, we started an opening day practice of taking a long, late lunch so we could watch the return of the baseball season. Opening Day is, after all, a baseball holiday.
It wasn’t surprising when Matt told me he was taking his young son, Jaxon, to Game 4 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Luckily for Jaxon, a fan of the Bronx Bombers like his dad, that was the game the Yankees convincingly won. So, he was happy on the ride home – at least until he fell asleep.
The important thing, though, was Matt sharing the long Yankees history and experience with his son and moving their family baseball tradition forward to the next generation.
Allow me to borrow from a well-known major league sponsor’s tagline. Win or lose, generations of families enjoying baseball together is, in a word, priceless.
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10/12/2024
Pete Rose’s lifetime punishment shows sports’ gambling double-standard
When Pete Rose, the all-time major league baseball hits leader, passed away recently, the subject of gambling once again took center stage. Given Rose’s status as the gambling punishment poster boy, the major sports leagues must finally own up and answer the question about exactly where they stand on gambling.
It appears they are on both sides of this issue, and straddling the fence is not a good place to be.
Watch any professional or college sporting event on television and you are likely to see advertisements for FanDuel, MGM Sportsbook and other big business legal sports betting organizations. Yet, while the major professional and college sports leagues and others reap the benefits from significant advertising dollars and other promotional spending by gambling outlets, they take a righteous indignation stance about betting by their players and employees.
Don’t think for one moment interest in the NFL is not enhanced by people betting on everything from the scores to who wins the coin toss. The odds even appear on-screen throughout games. Interest is promoted further by the millions of people who play fantasy football, simply another way to gamble. The NFL is not alone in this regard.
The legitimacy of wins and losses is, of course, paramount. The sanctity of the game must be preserved and remain above reproach. At the same time, punishment for rule breakers must be reviewed and revised. The way things currently stand, the leagues come off as hypocritical.
Their position reeks of double standard, especially when you understand gambling is a medical disorder, not merely people making poor choices. It’s one strike and you’re out for addicted gamblers like Rose, yet the accepted standard of care for players with alcohol and other drug addictions is medical intervention and rehabilitation, often multiple times.
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines gambling as a behavioral addiction, explaining, “in certain ways, gambling disorder resembles substance use disorder.” The Cleveland Clinic notes both “change your brain chemistry and can have features of withdrawal and tolerance.”
It is estimated 2-4% of the U.S. population is affected by gambling disorders, a number that seems ridiculously low. The Cleveland Clinic agrees, noting this estimate “may be inaccurate because not everyone with gambling disorder receives a diagnosis or professional treatment.”
Gambling disorder has multiple causes, including genetics, changes in brain chemistry, personality traits, and coexisting mental health conditions. Like other addictions, gambling disorder requires professional medical treatment for affected individuals to identify and come to terms with their condition, so they can work together to change unhealthy thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. And it requires continual recovery.
That sure sounds like a medical condition, not simply poor choices. So, why is it treated differently? The leagues always fall back on their “maintaining integrity” theme.
Many books have been written about Pete Rose, his amazing exploits while playing baseball, his time as manager, and the lifetime ban handed down by then baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti in 1989 because of Pete’s gambling activity. Giamatti died from a heart attack soon after announcing his decision, and Rose maintained the commissioner told him the lifetime ban could and likely would be lifted after a period of time when Rose showed MLB he was sorry.
After all, apologizing is part of the 10-step recovery process, right?
We will never know if Giamatti said that or not, but we do know subsequent commissioners never reinstated Rose and he never got his opportunity to be eligible for baseball’s Hall of Fame. When baseball someday finally rights this wrong, it will be at least one important step forward in sports acknowledging gambling as an addiction.
The convenient double standard surrounding Rose does not end there. Visitors to the hall and museum go there, in part, to see players’ equipment and other memorabilia from significant events in baseball history. While Pete was never welcomed into the family of Hall-of-Famers, there are still plenty of Pete Rose artifacts on display in Cooperstown.
Among the historical items are the shoes Rose wore on Sept. 11, 1985, when he got his 4,192nd hit and passed Ty Cobb to become major league baseball’s all-time hit king, as well as the Montreal Expos cap he wore on June 29, 1984, when he played in his 3,309th career game, setting a new record previously held by Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox.
It’s okay for Rose to be a Cooperstown tourist attraction, but not to be elected to the hallowed hall of baseball’s legends.
Rose agreed he was no saint, just a flawed human being, and you can find enough material to back that up. Among other indiscretions, it took him decades to finally admit he bet on baseball – but never against the Cincinnati team he managed – and he spent several months in prison for tax evasion.
That said, the issue compounding his troubles was gambling, an acknowledged medical disorder yet a pastime the sports world uses to its financial advantage every day.
Halls of fame are for athletes’ accomplishments in their chosen sports, and you can find numerous examples of those elected having less than stellar resumes outside the field of play. Look at O.J. Simpson and his issues; he was convicted of robbery but remains a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The opportunity to be considered hall-worthy for his baseball ability, though, has long been denied to Rose. Even the players from baseball’s steroid debacle at least made it to the ballot, but gambling remains the mortal sin to be brushed under the rug.
Rose said he “would walk through hell in a gasoline suit” just to play baseball. He played so well; it is a shame he served a life sentence away from the game he loved.
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10/9/2024
How about a Dikembe Mutombo Award in the NBA, similar to MLB’s Roberto Clemente Award?
It was October 2022 when I wrote a column about National Basketball Association legend Dikembe Mutombo’s brain tumor diagnosis. Sadly, the NBA global ambassador and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer died Monday at age 58.
Our world, not just the sports world, lost a true giant, not because he stood 7 feet, 2 inches tall, but because he lived an incredible life of service.
You can look up his statistics, but now isn’t a time for numbers. It’s a time to honor Dikembe for all he did in life.
Suffice it to say, he will long be remembered as one of the game’s greatest shot blockers, who led the NBA in blocked shots five consecutive seasons and blocks-per-game three consecutive seasons. More importantly, he will be revered for the positive difference he made in millions of lives.
“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA. Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others.
“There was nobody more qualified than Dikembe to serve as the NBA’s first global ambassador. He was a humanitarian at his core. He loved what the game of basketball could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and across the continent of Africa.”
Dikembe saw firsthand how the lack of medical care available in his home country affected his fellow citizens. His mother died from a stroke when she could not get to a distant medical facility in time for life saving care. He also observed how a lack of formal education prevented so many children from living their dreams for a better future.
When he made it to the NBA, Dikembe went to work to improve healthcare and education in the Congo. Today, thanks to his gifts of money, time, and talent, the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named in memory of his mother, stands as one of the most modern medical facilities in Africa.
Likewise, the Samuel Mutombo Institute of Science and Entrepreneurship, named in memory of his school teacher father, educates nearly 500 young students annually. He also helped children in need in Washington, D.C., and more.
There is a well-known poem, “The Dash,” and a 2024 version, “The Dash Between,” by Linda Ellis that focus on what people do during their lives on earth — represented by the dash that appears between the dates of their birth and their death — for Dikembe, 1966-2024. The poem emphasizes the importance of making the most of every day, and Dikembe Mutombo certainly did that and more.
“I had the privilege of traveling the world with Dikembe and seeing first-hand how his generosity and compassion uplifted people,” Silver said. “He was always accessible at NBA events over the years – with his infectious smile, deep booming voice, and signature finger wag that endeared him to basketball fans of every generation. Dikembe’s indomitable spirit continues on in those who he helped and inspired throughout his extraordinary life.”
Mutombo was much like the late, great Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates who excelled on the baseball field and also in his significant efforts to help people. Clemente, too, is a member of his sport’s hall of fame and is recognized as one of the greatest players in history.
He died on New Year’s Eve in 1972 when the airplane he was in, full of supplies to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua, crashed into the sea.
Major League Baseball honors Clemente with its annual Roberto Clemente Day on Sept. 15 and its Roberto Clemente Award, presented each year to the player who “best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy, and positive contributions, both on and off the field.”
Voting has ended for this year, and the 2024 award winner will be announced during baseball’s postseason games.
The NBA currently awards an annual Social Justice Champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Trophy to recognize a player’s dedication to social justice and upholding the league’s and Abdul-Jabbar’s longstanding values regarding equality, respect and inclusion. The 2023-24 winner was Karl Anthony Towns, who was recently traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to the New York Knicks.
Social justice is an important and worthy endeavor, and I congratulate the NBA for its efforts to promote it. But how about the NBA adds another award to a player who best exemplifies a deep commitment to humanitarianism similar to how Mutombo improved health, education, and well-being for people in need?
Like the awards named for Clemente and Abdul-Jabbar, this one can be named the Dikembe Mutombo Humanitarian Trophy.
That is something for Silver and the NBA to think about and act upon soon, as another basketball season is beginning. Honoring Dikembe and the award winners in this way will help inspire others to do what they can to make things better for other people.
“I am one of the many people whose lives were touched by Dikembe’s big heart and I will miss him dearly,” Silver said. “On behalf of the entire NBA family, I send my deepest condolences to Dikembe’s wife, Rose, and their children; his many friends, and the global basketball community which he truly loved and which loved him back.”
“I choose to make a difference. I choose to make a change. I choose to save lives,” Mutombo said in a Dikembe Mutombo Foundation video. “I want to see how many more lives I can save … how many more lives can I change by giving somebody else an opportunity to succeed. We have a moral duty to be responsible for what is happening around us.”
Let’s honor Dikembe by doing the same.
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8/17/2024
Is it time for the automated ball-strike system in Major League Baseball?
Watching Major League baseball for the last few years, and especially recently, has me rethinking the use of technology to make sure umpires call balls and strikes correctly. That is a huge step for me, and it’s taken a long time to get there.
I am a baseball traditionalist for the most part, but the number of incorrect pitch calls, whether the ball is thrown down the middle of the plate or five inches outside, begs the question whether the speed and movement on the ball is now too much for even the best umpires to consistently follow and make accurate decisions.
Years ago, it was rare for pitchers to reach 95 mph, but now every team has multiple pitchers who reach the high nineties on the radar gun. Some even top 100 mph. Talk about having to make split-second decisions.
Maybe we are asking too much of umpires. Batters facing this incredibly fast and deceiving pitching are successful when they bat .280. That means getting a hit only 28 percent of the time, which shows how difficult it is to hit good pitching. Yet we expect umpires to make perfect rulings.
Even when the umps are correct eight or nine times out of 10, the one call they get wrong is often obvious or one that has a huge impact on the game’s outcome.
Earlier this year, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said improvements need to be made before the automated ball-strike system (ABS) currently being tested in the minor leagues can be considered for use in the majors. Manfred said the earliest this technology could potentially be used in the major leagues is 2026.
Even then, it will likely be implemented as part of a challenge system rather than totally replacing the home plate umpires calling balls and strikes. Manfred said player feedback prefers a system that would allow approximately five pitch-call challenges per game, not total reliance on technology to call every pitch.
FanGraphs statistics indicate umpires are improving their ball and strike call accuracy, from 81.3 percent to 92.4 percent. Is this due to pitch tracking capability making umpires concentrate harder? Or perhaps because of the threat of ABS being used soon in the major leagues? Maybe I just happen to watch the games with the most incorrect calls.
No matter the reason, everyone should be pleased with what we hope is a trend toward continued umpiring improvement. I know my fingers are crossed.
MLB said the success rate of team-initiated video challenges for on-field calls has decreased from 50.2 percent of challenges being overturned in 2022 and 48.5 percent in 2023.
While that is a numerical improvement, is anyone happy that umpires missed the call nearly half the time on challenged plays? That kind of performance in most other professions will get you fired, and a failing grade in school.
While MLB is looking at a challenge system for pitch calls, it should also increase the number of on-field challenges managers can make during games.
How about five pitch-call challenges and three on-field challenges? I am all for the pace of the game moving quickly, but with games being won or lost because of incorrect calls, increasing challenges seems appropriate.
I am saying this as someone who is mixed in my agreement with many of the changes made to date in baseball. The American League began using the designated hitter in 1973, and the rule was adopted in the National League in 2022, but I still don’t like it.
I appreciate the pitch clock because it makes everyone play ball rather than consistently wasting time between pitches, but I’m still not sure about catchers calling pitches electronically. Seems like the pitchers’ radio receivers don’t work much of the time.
And this technology removes the intricacies of catchers calling pitches using various finger sequences, and the subsequent efforts of observant players using their eyes and minds to fairly figure out and “steal” the opposing team’s signs.
Finding ways to gain an advantage over the other team has always been the name of the game, as long as it is done within the rules. I was dismayed when the Houston Astros illegally used modern camera technology to steal opponents’ pitch signs so their hitters would know when to expect fastballs or breaking pitches. Houston rode that inside information all the way to the 2017 World Series championship.
I wasn’t sure about lowering the pitching mound from 15 inches to 10 inches in 1969. The owners got together with the commissioner to make the change because pitchers dominated during the 1968 season. Lowering the mound, they felt, would benefit the hitters, and it did. Still, it felt like hitters were getting off the hook thanks to a technicality.
Remember when then Oakland A’s owner Charley Finley wanted to replace the traditional white baseball with fluorescent yellow? MLB shot that one down, but you never know what might come next.
Whatever that might be, I hope the strategy and human element won’t be totally removed from the game. I enjoy long home runs like most everyone else, but I still see the magic in bunting, hitting behind runners to move them into scoring position, the squeeze play, a beautifully executed hit and run and aggressive base running.
Baseball outcomes must not be compromised by ongoing incorrect calls. We either accept certain technological advances or live with the bad calls, and either option is a slippery slope. How much technology or mistakes are we willing to accept?
But it’s in everyone’s best interests that we get it right and still honor the game’s long history and traditions. Compromise is the likely best outcome.
After we fix that, we’ll work on improving those hideous Friday night city uniforms.
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6/23/2024
Remembering Willie Mays – Yes, he was that good
Those of us who became sports fans in the 1960s are losing our childhood heroes at an alarming rate, but the sting of losing Willie Mays recently may be the toughest one to accept.
Especially coming so soon after the death of basketball legend Jerry West. Both icons and both gone.
Willie was 93 years old, so his death was not a surprise. But he was such a baseball legend and icon, always top-of-mind when talking about baseball’s greatest players, and the definition of what became to be known as a five-tool player.
That’s those select players who can do it all – run fast, throw hard and accurately, field their position cleanly, hit for a high average, and hit with power. It is believed the five-tool description was developed specifically to describe Mays and his multiple talents.
Willie could do it all, and he did, retiring as a major league player with 3,293 hits, 660 home runs, .301 batting average, 339 stolen bases, 12 gold glove awards, rookie of the year in 1951, most valuable player in 1954 and 1965, World Series champion in 1954, and a 24-time all-star.
He also made the iconic over-the-shoulder catch off the bat of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz, 450 feet away from home plate in the spacious Polo Grounds in New York during the 1954 World Series. His Giants won that championship over the favored Indians.
Mays surely would have hit more homers if his home games were not played in San Francisco’s cold, damp, and windy Candlestick Park. Even Willie agreed he could have led the league in stolen bases more often had he simply attempted more steals. If there ever was a player for whom the sky was the limit, it was Willie Mays.
He had that million dollar smile and was consistently a fan favorite not only at home, but also in opposing ballparks throughout the National League.
As a young player with the New York Giants, Mays often spent his spare time playing stickball with the kids in his neighborhood. New York was the center of the baseball universe in those days, home to three major league teams – the Giants, the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Those teams had tremendous center fielders, Mays with the Giants, Mickey Mantle with the Yankees, and Duke Snider with the Dodgers. All three are in the Hall of Fame. Remember Terry Cashman’s famous song, “Talking Baseball” about Willie, Mickey and the Duke? It referred to the ongoing debate during those days about who was the best player. All three were tremendous, but in the end the greatest one was Willie Mays.
Prior to the 1962 World Series between the Giants and Yankees (by this time, the Giants and Dodgers had moved to California), reporters separately asked Mays and Mantle who was the game’s greatest player. Mays said Mickey was the greatest while Mantle insisted, “Willie’s the best.”
I had two huge posters on my bedroom wall when I was a kid. One was Johnny Callison of the Philadelphia Phillies, my favorite player who also represented my favorite team. The other poster was Willie Mays. The Giants may have been my team’s enemy, but no matter. Mays was still a favorite. He wasn’t just another player, he was baseball itself, and I always admired his talent and charisma.
My first in-person major league game was at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia in 1966. Prior to the game, Mays was at the end of the Giants’ dugout signing autographs. I quickly got in line and waited as it slowly moved, and I got closer and closer. Then, just as I was the next to get an autograph, an usher stepped in front of me. “Sorry,” he said, “no more autographs today. Willie has to get ready for the game.”
I was disappointed, but Willie smiled, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “Sorry, kid,” and went off to take batting practice. Tito Fuentes, an infielder with San Francisco, and George Myatt, the longtime coach then with the Phillies, saved the day by signing my program. Major league autographs, sure, but nothing as legendary as it would have been to get a Mays signature.
Years later, the late Frank M. Henry, leader of Martz Trailways and a northeast Pennsylvania icon himself, gave me a Willie Mays autographed baseball. I looked at it as I wrote this piece.
I saw Mays play many more times, but that close encounter in 1966 was the closest I ever got to meeting the legendary number 24.
Mays was also instrumental in the civil rights movement during the volatile sixties, not by being loud and proud like Jackie Robinson, but by attaining a consistent level of excellence on the field and being a friendly, approachable, and principled man off of it. He let his daily actions do the talking for him, and for me it was successful.
I was born too late to appreciate watching Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Roy Campanella and Larry Doby play baseball, but the Black ballplayers of the 60s, notably Mays, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell and Dick Allen (another of my favorites), all served as excellent role models. The example they set strongly reinforced the lessons I learned from my parents that people are people and there is no room to spare in anyone’s heart for bigotry and hate.
Willie Mays was instrumental in teaching me this fundamental life lesson nearly 60 years ago, and it’s an important lesson even now. Perhaps even more so as there is still a long road to travel before we finally move past racial intolerance, and it becomes a true non-issue.
Baseball continues as a prime vehicle to further this cause.
Rest easy, Mr. Mays, and thank you. You really were that good.
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6/9/2024
80 years later … Thank you, Yogi Berra, Bobby Jones and other D-Day Heroes
With World War II well underway in 1943, a young Yankee catching prospect was working on improving his game playing for the Class B Piedmont League Norfolk Tars. Upon turning 18-years-old, Larry “Yogi” Berra changed uniforms by joining the United States Navy.
He volunteered to join the “amphibs” and was assigned to serve as a gunner on a small landing craft support rocket boat designed to provide machine gun coverage for troops landing on shore as well as smoke screen protection to limit the enemy’s visibility.
Think it’s hard work to toil behind home plate on hot summer days wearing full catcher’s gear and diving in the dirt to catch errant pitches? Berra admitted that was easy after being part of the Allied invasion of France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the largest seaborne invasion in history credited with moving the Allied Forces onward to victory.
Berra was among the first to see action when his boat neared the shoreline, attacked enemy machine gun nests, and provided cover for combat troops. Even in the midst of battle, Yogi remained focused on doing his job, although he was in awe of the sheer size and scope of the D-Day invasion.
“I never saw so many planes in my life,” Berra remembered. “It was like a black cloud.”
Berra and his fellow crew members stayed on the water for ten long days.
Wounded in his left hand during the invasion, he declined to complete the paperwork for the Purple Heart because he didn’t want his mother, at home in St. Louis, to hear the news and worry about him. Berra was decorated with the World War II Victory Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and the Medale de Jubile, presented by the citizens of Normandy, France, on the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
The winner of a record 13 World Series rings, Yogi Berra was famous around the globe. Then, there were also other, lesser-known heroes such as Forrest “Lefty” Brewer who was signed by the Washington Senators and destined for pitching glory. He pitched three seasons in the minor leagues, including a 25-win season in 1938 with the St. Augustine Saints in the Florida State League, but never got the chance to become a major league pitcher.
Brewer threw a no-hitter for St. Augustine over Orlando on June 6, 1938, was inducted into the U.S. Army in March of 1941, and volunteered for duty as a paratrooper. He was
assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division and stationed in Nottingham, England early in 1944.
Eight days before D-Day, and at the request of the local townspeople, the 508th played a baseball game against the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. It was Brewer’s last opportunity to shine on the baseball field and he pitched the 508th to an 18-0 win.
It was a different story when the paratroopers landed in France on D-Day and found themselves in an intense battle with German tanks and infantry. Sadly, Brewer was hit with enemy machine gun fire and killed on the sixth anniversary of his no-hitter.
Morris Webster Martin was one of the lucky ones who survived D-Day, as well as other battles, and played major league baseball after the war. Martin pitched ten seasons in the majors from 1949 to 1959 for the Philadelphia Athletics, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, and Baltimore Orioles. He had a pedestrian career record of 38 wins and 34 losses with a 4.29 earned run average, but was fortunate to have a long baseball career.
A combat engineer, Martin was among the first to land on Utah Beach in Normandy at the break of dawn on D-Day. He was hit by shrapnel, including on his left, pitching hand index finger and later claimed the injury improved his curve ball. He was later trapped in the basement of a bombed-out building, served at the Battle of the Bulge, and earned his second Purple Heart when he was shot in the leg on March 23, 1945.
Morris was in danger of losing the leg, but a nurse discovered he was a baseball player and disallowed the amputation. Instead, he was treated with a new drug, penicillin, and his leg was intact when he completed his service on October 31, 1945.
Herb “Briefcase” Simpson played in the Negro Leagues and also three seasons in the minor leagues. He and his fellow members of the 2057th Quartermaster Truck Company were in line to cross the English Channel on D-Day. By that time, though, the Americans established the beachhead, so the 2057th didn’t arrive in France until three days later. The unit remained in Europe following Germany’s surrender and provided logistical support in Munich, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg.
Golfer Bobby Jones, founder of the Augusta National Golf Club in 1933 and co-founder of the Master’s Tournament in 1934, landed in Normandy soon after D-Day on June 7, 1944, and spent two months interrogating German prisoners of war before being discharged in August. Lieutenant colonel Jones previously made a name for himself as perhaps the world’s best national and international amateur golfer, winning the U.S. Open in 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1930; the Open Championship in 1926, 1927, and 1930; the U.S. Amateur in 1924, 1925, 1927, 1928, and 1930; and the British Amateur in 1930.
More than 5,000 Allied forces were wounded on D-Day and 4,414 were killed, including 2,501 Americans. Another 73,000 Allied forces were killed, 153,000 wounded, and 20,000 French civilians killed in the ensuing Battle of Normandy.
Eighty years later, we honor all who served and those who died for our freedom. It’s a debt we can never totally repay, but remembering and thanking these heroes is a good start.
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5/4/2024
Time to get serious about teaching kids what youth athletics are all about
I still watch reruns of “Seinfeld.”
The TV show alleged to be about nothing actually highlights some key issues in its own comedic way, including an episode that featured Kramer practicing karate against children.
Unfair advantages in sports are not amusing, but “Seinfeld” made us laugh while showing the idiocy of Kramer dominating kids in his martial arts class. Later, the kids in Kramer’s karate class gang up on him in a dark alley and get their revenge. Exaggerated for entertainment value, yes, but the underlying injustice remains true.
Desire, effort, and heart elevate the best players. But the need exists for rules and coaching methods to provide as even a playing field as possible for all youth participants.
A player at a recent Little League game, although age appropriate for the minors, towered over everyone. His coach put him in to pitch and he threw harder than many older pitchers. The opponents were clearly intimidated.
Perhaps he is destined for greatness, but few youngsters at this level possess good control. They typically look more like Charlie Sheen’s “Wild Thing” character in “Major League,” especially when over-throwing.
What happened next was predictable, as two younger and smaller players were hit by pitched balls. The pitcher was upset, too. Although the damage was done, it was gratifying to see his coach console him.
That’s the kind of leadership and sportsmanship we need, and it is where common sense and quality coaching come into play.
The pitcher could have thrown at three-quarter or even half speed and still succeeded. He’d have better control and players would not fear getting into the batter’s box. Teaching him how to pitch rather than throw as fast as possible would not destroy his confidence, but encourage him to become better. There is more joy and sense of accomplishment in throwing strikes than in rocketing pitches off the backstop.
Most big kids are cognizant of their size and strength and careful about how they interact with others. They want to be part of the team, not a wrecking crew. Coaching them to play in a controlled manner won’t hinder their competitiveness, but teach them there is more to the game than brute strength.
At this age, it’s about teaching the basics of how to properly play the game. Winning is great, but secondary to providing a strong foundation the players can build upon as they move up to higher levels of competition.
The local Stingers Youth Wrestling Club and its coaches teach the right way. Their slogan is “We don’t lose. We learn.” That’s what youth sports are all about, and everyone can benefit from the Stingers approach.
Here’s another important truth. Youth athletic coaches are not there to, as Bruce Springsteen sang so well, relive their “Glory Days.” Their responsibility is to instruct, encourage, and allow the kids to fail as much as succeed. That’s how the kids get better.
Author Roger Kahn, writing in his classic book, “The Boys of Summer,” tells the story of pitcher Joe Black, retired from the Brooklyn Dodgers and taking his youth baseball team to a major league game. There, he sought out Casey Stengel and asked the great manager if he had any advice for his team. Stengel looked the kids over and told Black the best thing he could do was teach them how to lose properly.
That’s where Casey believed the most important lessons are, and he knew this better than most since he managed multiple World Series Champions and also the lowly 1962 New York Mets expansion team that lost 120 games.
Black was an educator, so he took Stengel’s advice seriously. On youth athletic fields across the country, however, we see many coaches stuck on winning at all costs instead of playing the game with honor and dignity. There is much more to athletics and competition than the final score, especially for young people.
When players reach their last year of Little League eligibility, they have devoted about seven years that started when they were playing tee-ball. They’ve proven their dedication and earned the right to enjoy their place at the top, but all too often are limited to playing only outfield and spending more innings on the bench than many younger teammates.
I’m in favor of earning what you get, but believe the entire picture must be considered when starting lineups are written and substitutions are made. Loyalty earns respect.
There are players of all levels of ability and proficiency. But if a coach shows a lack of confidence in a kid he’s been supposedly coaching for multiple seasons, that’s more of a reflection on the instruction than it is on the youngster. Too many kids leave organized youth sports broken, dejected and lacking confidence when they should be remembering those times as among the best in their lives.
When Green Bay Packers legendary coach Vince Lombardi said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” he was talking about professional athletes, not kids taking their first few steps up the competition ladder. Still, many youth sports coaches play the games as though it’s the World Series, Super Bowl or World Cup final.
There is nothing wrong with trying to win. It is not as simple with youth athletics, though, and those coaches who do things the right way are to be commended. They win some games, but more importantly, they help develop good people. We need more coaches like them.
There is a famous sign encouraging Notre Dame football players to “play like a champion today,” not win at all costs. When we teach our young people to play like champions, no matter the outcome, there is no way they can lose.
Remember, we don’t lose, we learn.
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4/20/2024
From O.J. to Gronk, coin tosses go both ways in the NFL and beyond
A coin is tossed at the beginning of every football game, signaling the duality of sports and life. Good, bad, right, wrong, win, lose. It’s all there in the recent stories of two NFL legends.
Talk about a good legacy gone bad. That was my reaction when I heard the news of the passing of Orenthal James Simpson.
Known as O.J. or “The Juice,” he won the Heisman Trophy and Maxwell Awards and graduated from Southern Cal in 1968. After being selected number one by the Buffalo Bills in the NFL draft, the sky was the limit
Over an 11-year professional career with the Bills (1969-1977) and San Francisco 49ers (1978-1979), O.J. rushed for 11,236 yards and 61 touchdowns and caught 203 passes for 2,142 yards and 14 touchdowns. A five-time First Team All-Pro, he set a record in 1973 as the first player to rush for 2,000 yards, the only player to do so in a 14-game season. He finished with 2,003 yards and won the NFL Most Valuable Player and Bert Bell Player of the Year Awards.
The four-time NFL rushing yards leader, three-time AFC Offensive Player of the Year, and two-time NFL rushing touchdowns leader was also a member of the NFL 75th and 100th Anniversary All-Time Teams, the Bills Wall of Fame, and Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Simpson appeared in the momentous television series “Roots” and various motion pictures including “The Towering Inferno” and “The Naked Gun” trilogy with Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley and George Kennedy. O.J. was also a commentator on “Monday Night Football” and “The NFL on NBC.”
The smiling celebrity pitchman for Hertz also hosted “Saturday Night Live.”
Most everyone knows what happened in 1994 when Simpson was arrested and charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Then there was the infamous, low-speed, white Ford Bronco police chase seen live on TV by more than 90 million viewers.
Simpson was tried and acquitted in a court of law. Prosecutors had uncovered 62 incidents of abusive behavior by Simpson toward Nicole Brown, but O.J.’s legal dream team won the case. His legal troubles were far from over, though, and he was found liable for the murders in a 1997 civil suit and ordered to pay $33.5 million to the Goldman and Brown families.
Arrested in 2007 for a robbery of sports memorabilia he claimed was originally stolen from him, Simpson was found guilty, sentenced to 33 years in prison, and released after serving nearly nine years.
Simpson passed away on April 10, 2024, still maintaining his overall innocence, but with millions of people believing he was guilty of murder. In his “The Tonight Show” monologue, Jimmy Fallon captured the complexity and dual nature of Simpson’s life, stating, “As we speak, someone is trying to write the most impossible eulogy of all time.”
Rather than being remembered as an all-time football great, his legacy will be forever bloodied by two lives tragically lost, his arrests, trials and prison term.
On the other side of the coin, we have the fun-loving and likable Rob Gronkowski.
Gronk also played 11 seasons in the NFL, nine with the New England Patriots and two seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. New England selected him with the 42nd pick in the second round of the 2010 draft after his stock fell due to back surgery that sidelined him for his junior year at Arizona.
That was great luck for the Patriots, as Gronk was the whole package, a tight end who could catch passes and also block effectively.
When he finished playing following the 2021 season, his many accomplishments included being four-time Super Bowl champion, five Pro Bowls, four-time First Team All Pro, PFWA 2010 All-Rookie team, 2011 NFL receiving touchdowns leader, 2014 NFL Comeback Player of the Year, Patriots All-2010s and All Dynasty Teams, NFL 2010s All-Decade team, and the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
Gronk set NFL records for most receiving touchdowns in a season (17) and total touchdowns in a season by a tight end (18). He caught 621 passes for 9,286 yards and 92 touchdowns, and added another 98 catches, 1,389 yards, and 15 touchdowns in the playoffs. He was also the first tight end to lead the league in receiving touchdowns (2011) and the first tight end with more than 1,000 receiving yards. His future place in the Professional Football Hall of Fame is secure.
Gronk is also a media darling, appearing in numerous films and TV programs, serving as celebrity pitchman for a long list of products and companies, and spending the 2019 season following his initial retirement as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports. He has appeared on “Shark Tank,” competed on “The Masked Singer,” co-hosted “Fox’s New Year’s Eve with Steve Harvey,”, and co-hosted Nickelodeon’s “Kids’ Choice Awards.”
On Patriot’s Day 2024, Gronk served as marshal for the Boston Marathon and threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Red Sox game. In typical Gronk fashion, and remembering many ceremonial first pitches gone bad, he didn’t throw the ball to the catcher. He opted to spike it into the pitching mound, reminding everyone of his famous touchdown spike celebrations. The crowd, of course, went wild.
Gronkowski’s charitable work is impressive. The Gronk Nation Youth Foundation “helps kids stay actively involved in school and sports and provide them with the tools needed to help them follow their dreams and live a happy and more successful life.” He was recognized with the Patriots’ Ron Burton Community Service Award, USO Merit Award and the Make-A-Wish Hero Award.
Gronk is building an impressive legacy of service and helping people in need. That’s the right kind of life to lead.
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03/20/2024
Last thing Ohtani and Dodgers need is a gambling distraction
When the Los Angeles Dodgers signed superstar Shohei Ohtani to a record-breaking $700 million contract earlier this year, the last thing they envisioned for the opening of the regular season was their prized player standing before the media and denying he bet on baseball or any other sport.
The Dodgers want everyone’s attention to be on Ohtani hitting tremendous home runs and, later when he is totally recovered from Tommy John surgery, striking out batters and winning games. Ohtani is a generational talent capable of doing things that remind fans of the great Babe Ruth.
Generational talents attract the most public attention, though, so Ohtani’s 12-minute announcement on March 25 is by no means the end of him being under the microscope. It gave Ohtani the opportunity to say he was not aware of his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, having a gambling problem or moving money from Ohtani’s account to pay off gambling debts.
Ohtani stated that Mizuhara stole money from him and then lied about it. And it is Mizuhara who lost his interpreting job with the Dodgers and stands accused of stealing $4.5 million.
Ohtani took no questions from reporters, but his teammates and those in the front office, the ones who put up the big bucks to bring Shohei to the Dodgers, say Ohtani’s denial and explanation is good enough for them.
So, let’s get on with it and play ball. Not so fast. The pieces to this puzzle are not all in place. Are we to believe that Ohtani is so cavalier about his bank account that he could be unaware of such large sums of money missing?
Not everyone agrees with the Dodgers assessment. Social networks, sports bars, and fans in the stands are replete with personal opinions about Ohtani’s knowledge of Mizuhara’s gambling and the possibility the interpreter may be covering for his friend.
It matters not that such claims may be ultimately determined as unfounded. We live in a think it, say it, share it with everyone world. Kind of a shoot off your mouth first and ask forgiveness later.
Ohtani and the Dodgers want this dark cloud to disappear as soon as possible, yet the investigation continues. So far, no evidence has been shared that Ohtani personally bet on sporting events, and MLB is hoping beyond hope that Ohtani is indeed nothing more than a victim in this mess.
Still, it is inevitable that many people will consider him guilty until he is proven innocent rather than the other way around. They will continue to search for holes in his story. Maybe Ohtani would have been better served to answer questions when he spoke to the media. At least he could have then been able to re-emphasize his innocence conversationally rather then relying solely upon a prepared statement. Even with an interpreter, a language barrier can at times be convenient.
All of this while the Dodgers, among the preseason favorites to win this year’s World Series, are trying to get off to a fast start.
Ohtani and his teammates better equip themselves with earplugs and their batting helmets with chinstraps. They will no doubt be taking plenty of grief until the investigation is completed and the legal case against Mizuhara runs its course.
You can bet fans at Dodgers away games, especially in rival San Francisco, will shower Ohtani and the team with all kinds of imaginative, unkind, and nasty comments.
Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader banned from major league baseball for life due to gambling, promptly made his voice heard about Ohtani and Mizuhara. If he only had a handy interpreter nearby back in the day, Rose mused, all his troubles would have been over a long time ago. Rose’s suspension began in 1989. Thirty-five years later it looks like his reprieve will never come.
You know the fans in Cincinnati, where Rose played many years for the Reds, will be more than ready when the Dodgers come to town. The fans in Philadelphia still appreciate Rose for leading the Phillies to the 1980 World Series Championship. It’s a sure thing they will be in loud voice when the Dodgers visit Citizens Bank Park for a three-game series beginning on July 9.
Major League Baseball’s longtime zero tolerance policy regarding gambling can also be problematic should the current situation worsen. The 1919 Black Sox scandal when certain players on the Chicago White Sox were accused of accepting bribes from gamblers to throw the Series happened more than 100 years ago. MLB suspended the players for life, including star player Shoeless Joe Jackson, even though the accused were later acquitted in a court of law.
Jackson could not read nor write and claimed he did not understand the confession he signed. His performance in the 1919 World Series did not reflect someone who was intentionally tanking in order to lose, as he hit an impressive .375. Similar to Rose, Jackson spent the rest of his life trying to get reinstated and be eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in 1951 still waiting for his ban to be lifted.
Can you imagine the tremendous angst in MLB headquarters should the Ohtani situation morph into something more?
Our major professional sports leagues benefit significantly from contracts with legal gambling organizations, and the added fan interest that comes with them having wagers on the outcomes.
The key word here is legal, but even so the leagues can’t help but avoid wanting to have things both ways.
The speculation, then, will continue, with fans certain it’s always been about the money. When you get right down to it, the fans know what they’re talking about.
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03/16/2024
Thank You, Caitlin Clark, for reminding us of Pistol Pete Maravich
It is fitting that University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark made history by setting a new record for career scoring in major college basketball in March, designated by the Library of Congress and other national organizations as National Women’s Month, a time to commemorate and celebrate the vital role of women in American history.
Fans are certainly appreciating Clark’s historical performance. Fox Sports reported 3.39 million viewers watched last week’s record-breaking game, the most-watched regular season women’s college basketball game since 1999. Viewership peaked at 4.42 million around the time many believed she would be approaching the record.
The two men’s NBA games televised that same day, Celtics-Warriors and Sixers-Mavs attracted viewing audiences of three million and 1.7 million respectively. So, definitely score one for Clark and the ladies.
Clark was named Big Ten Player of the Week an incredible 11 times this season, and in a win over Ohio State she registered her 19th game with more than 35 points, five assists, and five rebounds. That’s best in women’s NCAA basketball since the 2009-2010 season.
The Big Ten Conference unanimously named Clark its Player of the Year for the third consecutive season. No surprise there, as she leads the nation with 30 games scoring 20 points or more and is the only player this year with more than 900 points, 250 assists, and 175 rebounds.
She will most assuredly be the number one pick in the upcoming WNBA draft.
Clark’s detractors say she has never won a collegiate championship and the only reason she surpassed the legendary Pete Maravich in career scoring is because she played four seasons in college with a three-point line while Maravich played three seasons with no three-point line. Freshmen were not eligible to play during Pete’s collegiate years.
Comparisons between the two great players are inevitable, but wouldn’t it be better to simply appreciate what Clark and Maravich each accomplished without today’s seemingly endless need to not only have an opinion, but to always be compelled to share it with the world? Especially when it is negative.
There are many variables related to record-setters, so it is senseless to compare such apples and oranges. Players, coaches, rules, equipment, training methods, schedules, and other factors change. Let’s simply appreciate what we are fortunate to witness without being negative. As many record holders in various sports have reminded us, “records are made to be broken.”
It was a pleasure to watch the entertaining and flamboyant “Pistol Pete” Maravich during his playing days at LSU (1967/68 to 1969/70) and then in the NBA (1970 -1980). It is a pleasure now to see Clark elevate women’s college basketball to new heights. Can you believe tickets to a women’s basketball game in Iowa are such a hot commodity? That’s thanks to Clark and – as she consistently points out – her coaches and teammates.
That alone is a good lesson about teamwork and humility everyone should learn.
We also owe Clark a debt of gratitude for reminding everyone of Maravich, shining the spotlight on him again, and introducing him to a new generation.
Pete was born to be a basketball player. His dad “Press” Maravich was a former professional basketball player and then became a coach, so Pete benefited from learning the intricacies of the game at a young age. Pete spent hours upon hours practicing dribbling, shooting, ball control drills, faking out opponents, and other fundamentals, while his father kept a close watch to make sure Pete maintained his focus.
Press Maravich was hired to coach at LSU just about the time Pete was choosing a college, and that’s where Pete decided to play. Ineligible to play with the varsity because of a then NCAA No-Freshmen rule, Pete scored 741 points for LSU’s freshmen team. He made a bigger name for himself over the next three years, often scoring from long range – baskets that then counted for just two points – or weaving his way through the defense with his advanced ball handling ability.
Maravich excelled as a player and entertainer, and was a three-time NCAA season scoring leader, three-time Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, three-time consensus first-team All American, National College Player of the Year, two-time United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) Player of the Year, and the NCAA Division One Men’s All-Time Scoring Leader. LSU retired his jersey number 23 in honor of his accomplishments.
Pete’s long list of accolades continued while he played professionally for the Atlanta Hawks (1970-74), New Orleans/Utah Jazz (1974-80) and Boston Celtics (1980). He was a five-time NBA All Star, named twice to the All-NBA First Team and twice to the All-NBA Second Team, NBA All-Rookie First Team in 1971, NBA Scoring Champion in 1977, and a member of the NBA 50th Anniversary and 75th Anniversary Teams.
His jersey number 44 was retired by the Atlanta Hawks, and number 7 retired by both the Utah Jazz and the New Orleans Pelicans. Pete retired with 15,948 points (24.2 points per game), 2,747 rebounds (4.2 rebounds per game playing as a shooting guard), and 3,562 assists (5.4 assists per game). He was named to the College Basketball Hall of Fame and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and among the Top 75 greatest players in NBA history.
Sadly, Pete Maravich passed away at age 40 in 1988 from a rare congenital coronary defect. The left coronary artery was missing, and his right coronary artery was forced to work harder to compensate. Given this defect, his athletic career was all the more incredible.
Pete’s last words, seconds before he died, were reported as, “I feel great.”
Let’s all appreciate the greatness of these two legends. Caitlin Clark and Pete Maravich deserve no less.
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02/10/2024
Good coaches and managers become great when leading great players
It isn’t surprising Hall of Fame baseball manager Casey Stengel won seven World Series championships, including five in a row, while leading the New York Yankees. His teams were loaded with future Hall of Fame players in their prime including Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Phil Rizzuto.
With such great players, Stengel had a managerial record of 1,149 wins, 696 losses, and .623 winning percentage over twelve seasons with the Yankees.
As Stengel was fond of saying, “You could look it up.”
It was a different story for “the old professor” when he managed the expansion New York Mets from 1962-65. His record with the Mets was a dismal 175 wins, 404 losses, and .302 winning percentage.
Did Stengel forget how to manage or lose his magic touch after the Yankees dismissed him? Stengel hit the nail on the head when he said, “I was once asked what it takes to be a good manager. My response? Great players.”
Future Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Gil Hodges played for the original Mets, but both were at the end of their impressive playing careers and not the All-Stars they had previously been.
It’s true, you can’t win consistently if you don’t have the horses.
Kansas City’s Andy Reid coached for 19 seasons without Patrick Mahomes as his star quarterback. Over that time, he had 11 playoff wins, five conference championship game appearances, and one losing Super Bowl appearance.
Over the past six seasons with Mahomes playing at an exceptionally high level, Reid has 14 playoff wins, six conference championship game appearances, four Super Bowl appearances, and two Super Bowl championships. Reid and Mahomes can add another Super Bowl trophy by beating San Francisco today.
What a difference a superstar quarterback makes. Just ask Bill Belichick.
He and quarterback Tom Brady teamed up for 17 division titles and six Super Bowl wins over a dominant 20-year span with the New England Patriots. That is some rare air, indeed.
With Tom Brady staking his claim as perhaps the greatest quarterback, Belichick had a coaching record of 249 wins, 75 losses, and .769 winning percentage to go along with those six championships. Belichick is an incredible 31-13 in career playoff games.
His record since Brady left New England, though, is just 84 wins, 103 losses, .449 winning percentage, and no Super Bowl appearances. While playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brady compiled a record of 37 wins, 20 losses, .649 winning percentage, and one Super Bowl title.
Of course, Stengel, Reid, and Belichick are all-time great leaders. You can bet the farm, though, that every other manager and coach facing them over the years envied their talented rosters.
Good coaches and managers become great when leading great players. Estimates indicate a good baseball manager can mean five additional wins and a good basketball coach can mean up to 14 additional victories over a season. Just a few extra wins in the NFL can make all the difference.
The 2021 New York Giants finished last in the NFC East at 4-13. The team replaced coach Joe Judge with Brian Daboll and the 2022 Giants improved to 9-7-1 and a wildcard spot. Quarterback Daniel Jones completed 317 of 472 passes for 3,205 yards and 15 touchdowns, and rushed for 708 yards and seven touchdowns.
Daboll was named the AP 2022 NFL Coach of the Year.
This past season, Jones was injured and limited to just six games. He completed 108 of 160 passes for 909 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 206 yards and one touchdown. The Giants regressed to 6-11, out of the playoffs. Daboll didn’t suddenly forget how to coach winning football, but without his quarterback and other key players victories were hard to get.
There are, however, many examples of coaches losing games for their teams.
The Seattle Seahawks were just one yard away from winning Super Bowl XLIX, second down and goal with 1:26 left on the clock. Marshawn Lynch, football’s strongest and most accomplished goal line runner, was ready to power his way into the end zone. Rather than capitalizing on Lynch, though, coach Pete Carroll stunned his team by calling for a pass.
The NFL is predominantly a passing league, but multiple things can happen on pass plays and only one of them is good. Instead of Lynch carrying the ball, Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted the pass and sealed the championship for New England.
Then there was the first Miracle at the Meadowlands on Nov. 19, 1978, when the New York Giants, needing only to kneel on the ball to run out the clock and beat the Philadelphia Eagles unbelievably decided to run the ball instead.
Quarterback Joe Pisarcik, who starred for West Side Central Catholic High School in Kingston and then New Mexico State, lost control of the ball while handing it to fullback Larry Csonka. The ball bounced on the turf and was picked up by Eagles defensive back Herman Edwards, who returned it 26 yards for the game-winning touchdown. Offensive coordinator Bob Gibson was fired the following day, never to coach football again.
The Detroit Lions recent collapse to the San Francisco 49ers included two questionable fourth-down decisions by head coach Dan Campbell. The Lions succeeded at fourth down attempts all season, but Campbell’s over aggressive style and decisions to not attempt two field goals cost his team a possible six points and an opportunity to play on football’s biggest stage. You can’t leave points off the board in such high stakes games.
Detroit has never played in the Super Bowl, but they do have good coaches and several great players. So, there’s always hope they will get there one day, as long as they don’t give it away.
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01/13/2024
The Catch’ by Dwight Clark will live forever, as will his memory
Warming up for the NFC Championship game on Jan. 10, 1982, Dwight Clark was confident he would contribute to his team’s success. Clark couldn’t have known, though, he and his San Francisco 49ers teammate, quarterback Joe Montana, were about to make a play that even now – 42 years later – is among the greatest plays in the history of the National Football League.
There were only 58 seconds left in the game against the Dallas Cowboys with the winner headed to Super Bowl XVI. The ball was on the Cowboys’ six-yard line and San Francisco needed to gain three yards for a first down or six yards for a touchdown.
Dallas was up by six points at the time, so a field goal was of no use to the 49ers. Inside the huddle, Montana calmly called the play, “Change left slot, sprint right option,” a play that was designed for a short pass to wide receiver Freddie Solomon, a talented receiver who finished his career with 371 receptions, 5,846 receiving yards, and 48 receiving touchdowns.
As the play developed, primary target Solomon slipped while making a cut on his pass route. Montana had to look elsewhere while moving backwards to avoid the relentless pass rush by Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Larry Bethea and D.D. Lewis. He ultimately found Clark running along the back boundary of the end zone. With the 6-foot, 9-inch Jones in his face, Montana delivered a high pass with the hope that either Clark would catch it, or it would sail out of the end zone and give them one last chance on fourth down.
Covered closely by All-Pro cornerback Everson Walls, Clark made a leaping catch. He needed all of his 6-foot, 4-inch frame and long reach to snare the pass with his fingertips. Dallas had 51 seconds left on offense, but San Francisco recovered a fumble by Cowboys’ quarterback Danny White to complete the 28-27 victory.
Montana never saw the catch until he looked at the replay. After throwing the pass, he was knocked to the turf by Jones. The roar of the crowd at Candlestick Park told Montana all he needed to know. The Niners were on their way to the Super Bowl.
“Montana … looking, looking, throwing in the end zone … Clark caught it! Dwight Clark! It’s a madhouse at Candlestick,” the late, great Vin Scully called the play on the CBS Television broadcast.
A photo of Clark’s miraculous catch made the cover of Sports Illustrated and the 49ers went on to beat the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21 to win a tightly contested Super Bowl.
Statues were erected, television commercials and programs referenced it, and NFL Films ranked “The Catch” second on its list of the 100 Greatest Plays – surpassed only by the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Terry Bradshaw-to-Franco Harris Immaculate Reception play in a 1972 AFC Divisional Playoff game.
Clark finished his playing career with 506 catches, 6,750 receiving yards and 48 receiving touchdowns and went on to serve as an executive in the front offices of the 49ers and the Cleveland Browns.
Sadly, Clark announced on March 19, 2017, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and died on June 4, 2018. Clark suffered three concussions during his playing career, suspected he developed ALS as a result of playing football, and encouraged the NFL and the league’s Players Association to continue improving equipment and making football safer to play.
Remembering Clark’s incredible catch, his illness and death reminded me of my brother Carl, who passed away from ALS in December 2015, and his college friend, Coach George Curry, who passed from ALS just a few months later in April 2016.
George, from Larksville, and Carl, from Courtdale, grew up just a mile or so apart. Carl ran track at Kingston High School and George was a football standout at Larksville High School. They both went to Temple University where George was a hard-hitting nose guard and linebacker.
George was always practicing football, hitting the blocking sled and teammates during practice and taking his aggressive style of play to a higher level by hitting closed doors and other obstacles at Temple. Anything to be ready for game time.
The legendary high school football coach compiled a record of 455 wins, 102 losses, and two ties over a 46-year coaching career, mostly at Berwick Area High School but also at Lake-Lehman and Wyoming Valley West.
A research study funded by the ALS Association and led by researchers at Harvard University and Boston University’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center studied 19,423 NFL players who played between 1960 and 2019.
The research paper, published in the journal Neurology on Dec. 15, 2021, indicated, “NFL players are four times more likely to be diagnosed with ALS and die from the disease than people who never played in the league, adding to the mounting evidence of a link between playing football and ALS.”
Work continues to develop new treatments and ultimately find a cure for this progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease. Various studies look at potential causes, including geography, environmental factors, head trauma and more. It’s clear the connection between concussions and repeated blows to the head such as those experienced playing football cannot be denied.
Officials are often faulted when calling penalties for head-to-head contact, some of which is impossible to avoid as long as humans remain unable to stop in mid-air and avoid collisions. We are especially irate when the calls negatively affect our team.
In memory and honor of everyone affected by ALS, though, let’s support doing all we can to keep players as safe as possible.
In the big picture, that’s the least we can do.
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2023
12/30/2023
New Year’s Resolutions for the National Football League
Only nine percent of Americans complete their New Year’s resolutions, but here are some suggested resolutions anyway for the National Football League. It’s all about the fans and players, right?
Fix The Schedule – Philadelphia’s AJ Brown recently said he’s had enough of Monday Night Football, because the short week makes it more difficult for players’ bodies to recover for the next game. MNF isn’t going anywhere, but the Eagles played four Monday night games this year and Brown’s concern is valid. It’s time to limit teams to no more than two Monday Night games and one Thursday game each year.
The division schedule is also a mess, with certain division foes scheduled to play each other twice within a few weeks when the overall game calendar is spread over 18 weeks.
For the past few seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants haven’t played until December, which is a disservice to them and their division. Suppose one team loses key players to injury. Is it equitable to play both games in a short period of time against a division foe while obviously limited?
Scheduling division foes at the beginning and again at the end of the season decreases the chances they will have to play both of these all-important division games without key players.
Last season, the Eagles and Giants met on Dec. 11 and Jan. 8, before their eventual playoff game on Jan. 21. This season, they didn’t play each other until Christmas Day with their second meeting scheduled for Jan. 7.
They are not the only teams affected this way. Seattle played San Francisco on Nov. 23 and Dec. 10. Detroit played Chicago on Nov. 19 and Dec. 10. The Lions played Minnesota on Dec. 24, with the second meeting set for Jan. 7.
It’s a challenge to schedule 272 regular season games, but with modern technology it should not be difficult to limit short weeks and put more space between division games.
“It takes thousands of cloud-based computers to produce thousands of possible schedules – a process that sets the stage for the schedule makers to begin the arduous task of picking the best possible one,” reports NFL.com.
But all six schedule makers have the word “broadcasting” in their titles. As if there was any doubt their priority is to ensure key weekly matchups to entice television viewers and advertisers, not what’s fair and equitable for each team.
The NFL shares, “flexible scheduling helps showcase the best late-season matchups to the largest audiences,” but doing so is inconsiderate to players and the fans in the stands – mostly season ticket holders who travel to games. These fans have added expenses, must rearrange travel and hotel plans, and take additional time off from work and school when the league flexes game times.
The largest audiences watch the games on TV, but what about the shirtless guys freezing in Green Bay with “Packers” painted on their chests? Day or night, they’ve been going to games for decades. No worries there, but it isn’t about them. Never was, at least not since the league began flexible scheduling.
Level The International Schedule – The Cowboys website recently quoted owner Jerry Jones on international games, “I’m very reluctant to move a home game from here to there. It fits for a lot of clubs; it doesn’t fit for the Cowboys as much. When we don’t have a game here, it makes a big difference.”
It makes a big difference for other teams, too.
The current requirement is for each team to host at least one international game every eight years, but the Cowboys have been scheduled only once since 2007. Dallas was the visitor against Jacksonville in London in 2014. The only team that has avoided playing abroad longer is Pittsburgh, who last did so in 2013.
Dallas hasn’t hosted an international game in 16 years, but the league’s owners recently voted to expand international games. That makes it more likely Dallas will have to move forward.
Jones voiced another preference to make hosting a home international game more attractive for Dallas. “When we aren’t playing here, I want it to be in Mexico City. Period. Mexico City is good and close. If I’m going international, I want to play in Mexico City.”
Let the Eagles, Giants and Commanders go to Europe.
Does Jones think Buffalo should only host an international game if it’s in Toronto? His stance isn’t a good look and is unfair to the rest of the league. To save time and money on travel, Jones should ask the NFL to put the Cowboys in a division more geographically appropriate. Look at a map. Texas is not in the east.
Fix Interception Statistics – It’s one thing when a quarterback throws a pass directly to a defender. It’s something else when the pass hits the receiver in the hands and deflects for an interception. All picks currently count against the quarterback, but adding a deflected pass interception category would be more accurate.
The No-Sack Dance – Pass rushers dance when they get a sack, but most pass plays occur without defenders reaching the quarterback. Maybe it’s time for offensive linemen to celebrate. No, the big guys on the O-line are too classy for that and they’d have to dance 30 times a game instead of just a few.
Officiating – Officiating is a difficult job, but there are way too many calls and non-calls affecting games. The NFL needs to prioritize consistency in how games are officiated. Refs should also have to better explain the reason when they pick up a flag. Saying, “there is no flag on the play” just doesn’t suffice.
There’s much more to do, of course, but this would be a good start for 2024.
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11/19/2023
Draymond Green heads the list of the NBA’s bad behavior repeat offenders
The National Basketball Association season is still young, but already Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors is making headlines for the wrong reasons.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone.
A recent announcement from NBA Communications reported Green “has been suspended five games without pay for escalating an on-court altercation and forcibly grabbing Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert around the neck in an unsportsmanlike and dangerous manner.”
Joe Dumars, NBA Executive Vice President/Head of Basketball Operations, indicated “the length of the suspension is based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts.”
The incident leading to Green’s most recent questionable actions occurred in the first quarter of the Warriors and Timberwolves game on Nov. 14. The NBA also announced “Warriors guard Klay Thompson and Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels and center Rudy Gobert have each been fined $25,000 for their roles in the incident, which started when Thompson and McDaniels became entangled and were grabbing and pulling at one another’s jerseys, and continued when Gobert entered the situation and wrapped up Thompson. Thompson and McDaniels were each assessed a technical foul and ejected, while Green was assessed a Flagrant Foul 2 and ejected.”
Two of the best defenders in the game today, Green and Gobert have long challenged one another with their physical play. For his part in the recent fracas, Gobert insists he was acting as peacemaker and indicated he would appeal his fine. As for Green, the Warriors broadcast team said he, too, was being a peacemaker. If so, putting Gobert in a headlock and dragging him down the court by the neck was excessive. Warriors coach Steve Kerr even yelled at Green to let go.
This cannot be the look the NBA wants its fans and the world to repeatedly see. As baseball great Yogi Berra once observed, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Last April, Green was suspended for one game without pay during a Warriors and Sacramento Kings playoff game when he stomped on the chest of Kings player Domantas Sabonis. The players got tangled and Sabonis grabbed Green’s ankle before Green stomped on him. While Sabonis remained on the floor grimacing in pain, Green played to the crowd and seemed to enjoy inciting them.
At that time, Dumars took Green’s history of such antics into consideration when announcing Green’s suspension. For Dumars and those who follow the NBA, Green’s repetitive excessive force is an act that is not only getting old, but well past-due to be stopped once and for all.
Remember Game Five of the 2016 NBA Finals between the Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers? That was when Green struck Lebron James in the groin, resulting in a flagrant foul and suspension. The Warriors were up three games to one at the time, but Cleveland roared back and defeated Golden State to win the NBA Championship. Thanks, Draymond, for nothing.
Green is also remembered earlier in the 2016 playoffs for kicking in the groin center Steven Adams, who was then playing with the Oklahoma City Thunder. During that year’s regular season, he found trouble by bouncing a basketball off the head of Russell Westbrook of the Los Angeles Clippers.
With these previous infractions, fines, and suspensions, you’d think Green would get the message. Sadly, his most recent incident indicates otherwise and begs the question of whether longer suspensions and higher fines should be considered. If not, fans will have a hard time determining if they are watching an NBA game or the latest mixed martial arts offering.
This is polar opposite to the NBA collective bargaining agreement and the league’s code of conduct that reads, “players shall not engage in any activity which is likely to result in loss or willful damage to property or cause injury to any person.”
Mandatory programs are in place for a variety of life skills training. Good, but if there aren’t tests included to ensure players are learning from these programs, perhaps there should be.
Longer and more costly suspensions for bad behavior are nothing new, so enforcement should not be problematic. Metta Sandiford-Artest (known previously as Ron Artest) was suspended 86 games for his role in a huge brawl known as the “Malice in the Palace” during a game between the hometown Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in 2004. Stephen Jackson (30 games) and Jermaine O’Neal (15 games) were also suspended for their participation in this brawl that dangerously included players, coaches, and fans.
Kermit Washington of the Los Angeles Lakers was suspended for 26 games for punching Rudy Tomjanovich of the Houston Rockets in the face during a 1977 game. Tomjanovich suffered a fractured skull and serious facial injuries. Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets (15 games) and Mardy Collins of the New York Knicks (6 games) were suspended for their participation in a fight during a 2006 game that extended into the crowd.
Other long suspensions include Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors (68 games) for getting into an altercation with head coach P.J. Carlesimo in 1997; Gilbert Arenas (50 games) and Javaris Crittenton (38 games) for brandishing unloaded guns in the Washington Wizards locker room in 2010; Miles Bridges (30 games) in 2023 for domestic violence; Ja Morant (25 games) in 2023 for his second gun-related incident; and Jeff Taylor (24 games) in 2014 for domestic violence.
I previously wrote about fans needing to get their heads on straight and act appropriately and respectfully at sporting events. That’s still true, but the challenge is even greater when the athletes themselves serve as the poster children for bad behavior.
Enough is enough.
Let’s hope the NBA and the players’ association increase the consequences. That will be more costly, make the game better and enhance its future.
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10/14/2023
Fanatical fans must keep negative emotions in check for the good of all sports
We look to sports to escape from an all-too-often brutal world. Sporting events give fans a sense of belonging, being part of a group of people supporting their teams and sharing in both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
That’s great. As long as we remember that sporting events are entertainment, even when bets are lost, and that agony of defeat hits you in the wallet. Win or lose, most fans still have to get up and go to work or school in the morning.
Most fans act appropriately, but unfortunately there are those who cross the line into unacceptable behavior. And that is never good.
There are winners and losers every time athletes play, so fans must know how to win and how to lose with honor and respect. That wasn’t the case at Yankee Stadium during the 2009 World Series when a few New York fans tried to pick a fight with me and my friends because we are Phillies fans. We did nothing to deserve their ire, but they were so misbehaved that other Yankees fans apologized to us for the bad experience.
Some more recent stunts by crazy fans makes one wonder what they were thinking, if in fact, they were thinking at all.
There were multiple violent brawls among 49ers fans during a September game at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco against the New York Giants. Men and women, all Niners fans, first threw punches at one another before security restored order. Another fight broke out later, this time between Niners and Giants fans. San Francisco won the game 30-12, so something other than the game itself set off the fans of the home team.
Fights at Levi’s Stadium are getting to be a terrible tradition, as fisticuffs also broke out during a July soccer game and an August preseason game between the Niners and the Denver Broncos.
Last week, there was the guy who ran onto the playing field at Camden Yards in Baltimore during game one of the Orioles and Texas Rangers American League Division Series. Clad only in tiny undershorts emblazoned with the words ‘Virginity Rocks’ and black socks, his big moment didn’t last long as stadium security and city police captured, handcuffed and removed him.
For 7-year-old Leo, a young Orioles fan attending his first playoff game with his uncle, and with thousands of other kids there, the scene was something they surely didn’t need to see. Leo is a bright and inquisitive youngster who loves sports, and it’s certainly best for him and the other young people to be able to focus on the game itself – not the distraction of some guy in bikini shorts making a fool of himself.
Then, an umpire’s call of catcher’s interference during the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves National League Division Series game one in Atlanta benefited the visiting team and sparked a fit by some unruly fans who threw trash onto the playing field when the call was upheld on review. Play was halted for several minutes while stadium workers cleaned up the mess.
That isn’t right, not for the people who were tasked with picking up others’ trash, real fans who saw several others at their worst, and the players on both teams who had to stand around and wait for the playing field to be cleared and the game resumed.
As a Philadelphia sports fan, I’m often told how terrible the fans are in the City of Brotherly Love, and that the new name for the Philadelphia Eagles’ famous short yardage formation – the Brotherly Shove – describes not only the play formerly known as the “tush push,” but also the rabid fans in the stands watching the play unfold.
There have been several incidents of fans gone wild in Philly, but the coverage over the years, by national media especially, would make you believe such behavior is limited to Philadelphia when it clearly is not. Although the incidents happened decades ago, announcers still like to repeatedly share that Philadelphia fans even booed Santa Claus and once pelted then Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson with snowballs.
It’s a safe bet you will hear at least one of these stories each year. The Santa in question, by the way, was a skinny, scruffy guy who looked nothing like Santa except for the red suit. So, let’s put an end to that one here and now.
Veteran Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen, who had a long major league career as a relief pitcher, defended Philadelphia fans during the broadcast on 94WIP radio while Braves fans littered the field. Andersen said he hoped the national media would pay close attention to the incident and be clear that the game was being played in Atlanta, not Philadelphia, and that he was sick of hearing negative talk about Philly fans.
Of course, not all Philadelphia fans are well behaved. I was there the day that Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin was injured at Veterans Stadium. Some fans cheered the end of his career, but most others applauded as he left the field. Philly has its share of crazies, but whenever you put thousands of people together anywhere there are going to be good and bad. It’s the misbehaving minority that paints the negative perception of the vast majority of fans who in reality enjoy the game peacefully.
After signing an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Phillies, shortstop Trea Turner had a hard time adjusting to his new team and played well below his all-star standard. He was mired in a batting slump and his defense was also suffering. Then, in early August the Phillies fans did something unique and inspiring. Instead of booing him for his poor performance, they stood and cheered to encourage him and let him know they were behind him. The result was astonishing as Turner once again became the feared slugger and base stealer the Phillies knew he was when they signed him.
Imagine that. Fans coming together and sharing positive energy and support for the players on the field rather than misbehaving. It certainly beats those who are abusive, repulsive, destructive, and in need of an attitude adjustment.
Just ask my Orioles buddy Leo. He’s a super-fan in my book, there to enjoy the game. Let’s all do likewise.
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7/22/2023
It’s Hall of Fame Weekend from Cooperstown to the Cherry Street Pier
There’s a bronze statue of Buck O’Neil inside the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., that honors the legacy and namesake of the Hall’s Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.
The life-size statue is a permanent testament to one of the greatest people in baseball’s long history. On this Hall of Fame induction weekend, the Class of 2023 is being enshrined and honored – Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen, elected to recognize their worthy accomplishments as players, John Lowe with the Baseball Writers of America Career Excellence Award, Pat Hughes with the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting, and Carl Erskine with the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.
Honoring Erskine with the esteemed O’Neil Award is especially noteworthy as the 96-year-old former Dodgers pitcher has truly lived a life of service. Established in 2008, the O’Neil Award is presented not more than once every three years by the Hall’s Board of Directors to honor an individual whose extraordinary efforts enhanced baseball’s positive impact on society, broadened the game’s appeal and whose character, integrity and dignity are comparable to those of O’Neil.
Buck was made famous when he was featured in the Ken Burns Baseball series. He also published a heartfelt and intriguing memoir, “I Was Right on Time – My Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors,” that should be required reading for everyone interested in baseball history, American history and the overall life of an outstanding human being. The first African American to coach in the major leagues, he was an accomplished player and manager for the Kansas City Monarchs and a longtime scout for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals.
Erskine is just the sixth such honoree and he joins some elite company. O’Neil himself was the first recipient followed by Roland Hemond, a front-office leader, innovator and strategist over seven decades in baseball; former player and broadcaster Joe Garagiola who played a major role in the Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.) to help former major leaguers who played before the days of high salaries and found themselves in need late in life; Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, who created the Jackie Robinson Development Corporation to build and manage quality housing for people of moderate and low incomes and the Jackie Robinson Foundation to provide college scholarships and leadership training for students, as well as spending a life of service to raise the level of equality throughout society; and David Montgomery, who over a five-decade career culminating with becoming the Philadelphia Phillies’ president, chief executive officer, and chairman, spearheaded the team’s community service efforts to raise more than $19 million for the ALS Association of Greater Philadelphia and support various other nonprofit organizations.
Elite company, indeed.
A standout pitcher for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948 to 1959, Erskine won 122 games throughout his playing career, including two World Series Championships. He pitched two no-hitters, one on June 19, 1952, against the Cubs and the other against the New York Giants on May 12, 1956, and set a then single-game record by striking out 14 New York Yankees in Game Three of the 1953 World Series.
“For millions of fans, he was a Dodgers hero,” said Hall of Fame and Museum Board Chair Jane Forbes Clark, “but for his family and thousands of Special Olympians, Carl Erskine was someone who always believed everything was possible. His legacy is one of deep compassion and encouragement of the human spirit.”
The story of Carl and Betty Erskine raising a special needs child with love, understanding and support to help their son learn and grow is eloquently told in the classic book, “The Boys of Summer,” by Roger Kahn, whose book should also be required reading for lovers of great writing.
With more than four decades as a volunteer, Erskine was awarded the Special Olympics’ highest honor, the Spirit of the Special Olympics, and was also a charter member of both the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Baseball Assistance Team. In 2010, he received the State of Indiana’s highest honor, the Sachem Award, in recognition of his lifetime of excellence and moral virtue.
“I’m a little overwhelmed and this (O’Neil Award) is very special to me,” Erskine said. “What an honor this is, and it is really unexpected. At this point in my life, this is as big a boost as you can possibly give me.”
A big boost for a man who spent his life boosting countless others. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Meanwhile, about 200 miles away from Cooperstown at the Cherry Street Pier beneath the Ben Franklin Bridge at 121 North Columbus Boulevard in Philadelphia, there is a special exhibit, “A League Apart,” that showcases the importance of breaking barriers through the stories of the city’s negro leagues and their ongoing legacy.
That is where the important stories of Octavius Catto, Ed Bolden, Richard “Dick” Allen, and Mo’ne Davis are being shared through Aug. 24. These barrier breakers stepped up to the plate to change the biases and traditions of baseball. The exhibit is produced by University of the Arts alumna Carolyn Quick and Brian Michael, owner of Shibe Vintage Sports.
“’A League Apart’ highlights a commonly untold story of baseball. You hear the names Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, but what about the stories of the Philadelphia Stars’ MahlonDuckett and ‘Slim’ Jones?” Quick said. “In this exhibit, we highlight why the Negro Leagues are important, their formation, and their ongoing legacy so that people today can have a complete history of America’s pastime.”
The exhibit is free and open to the public Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday, noon to 9 p.m., Friday, noon 11 p.m., and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m..
I have long been a public advocate of Dick Allen to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Twice, he has fallen just one vote short of being elected. Allen’s Hall of Fame-worthy career and his role in helping to integrate Philadelphia during the volatile 1960s is featured in “A League Apart.”
Let’s hope that his public exhibit, as well as the Phillies retiring Allen’s uniform number 15 and other efforts to keep his legacy alive will culminate in his being elected to the Hall of Fame at the next opportunity.
That’s where the man from Wampum, PA, who rose to the heights of baseball in the ‘60s and ‘70s truly belongs.
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5/20/2023
What if the Churchill Downs catastrophe happened in another sport?
Imagine it is the week leading up to the Super Bowl and several football players die either from injuries during practice or for unknown reasons pending toxicology studies. Unthinkable, right?
In this imaginary scenario, all hell would break loose with demands to further regulate the sport, its protective equipment, training methods and more. The public would demand action, and the NFL and government would have little choice but to comply.
Some of this has already occurred over the past few years regarding the effects of repeated head injuries and concussions, but nothing to the extent that would occur if the unthinkable Super Bowl scenario happened.
Well, that’s exactly what took place at Churchill Downs leading up to and including Kentucky Derby Day earlier this month when seven horses died. Churchill Downs indefinitely suspended trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. and scratched his Derby horse from the big race after two of his horses collapsed and died during the week.
The Derby is the Super Bowl of thoroughbred horse racing, but much of the sport’s attention has already moved on to the Preakness and Belmont, the second and third legs of the sport’s Triple Crown.
As someone who has spent decades handling crisis communications, I know the playbook is to put the crisis behind you as quickly as possible. It is also paramount to identify the root cause and make the necessary changes so the likelihood of it happening again is minimized or, if possible, eliminated.
There are calls for further changes in horse racing and some things are being done to help protect horses and jockeys. The problem is bigger than any individual track. It runs throughout the sport and demands industry-wide answers and corrective measures.
The Horseracing Safety and Integrity Authority (HISA) established uniform national regulations that went into effect last July and an Antidoping and Medication Control Program begins this week after being delayed due to legal challenges. Time will tell if these regulations are enough, and some animal activists want horse racing banned altogether. With billions of dollars at play, that is highly improbable.
“Churchill Downs is unwavering in our commitment to the health and well-being of equine safety,” a statement released by the track reads. “The equine fatalities leading to this year’s Kentucky Derby are a sobering reminder of the urgent need to mobilize our industry to explore every avenue possible and effectively minimize any avoidable risk in the sport.”
Sobering indeed. Soon afterward, 3-year-old colt Rio Moon suffered a catastrophic leg injury on May 14 just after crossing the finish line at Churchill Downs and was euthanized, making for eight total equine deaths there in two weeks.
“Despite our determination to continually improve upon the highest industry standards, there is more to be done and we will rigorously work to understand what caused these incidents and build upon our existing data, programs, and practices to better understand what has been incredibly difficult for us to witness and accept this week,” the statement continued.
The key words are “there is more to be done.”
Churchill Downs stressed that each equine death incident has been unique with no discernible pattern to the sustained injuries. The track surfaces are strictly monitored by industry experts for quality and every horse undergoes “multiple, comprehensive veterinarian exams and observations to ensure their fitness to race.”
“From here, we will fully and actively work with the Kentucky Horseracing Commission and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority to thoroughly investigate each incident to determine, to the degree possible, any underlying health or environmental causes and apply those learnings to continue to improve the safety of this sport. Together, we all want what is best for the horses,” the statement read. “We believe the incidents leading to this year’s Derby are anomalies. They are unacceptable and we remain steadfast in our commitment to safety and integrity.”
The key phrase is “to the degree possible.” No corrective measures will be 100% effective.
Officials at Churchill Downs are saying the right things. They must, as many believe horse racing itself is a dying sport.
“Horse racing was the only form of legal gambling in the country outside of Las Vegas until the 1970s,” shares Carmen Rizzo, a longtime racing enthusiast. “This was when horse racing began to decline. Without offtrack betting and support from casinos, horse racing would be a niche sport.”
The assurances of commitment to health and safety must be followed by action and monitored. Especially when you consider that officials at Santa Anita Racetrack in California said pretty much the same thing after 42 horses died there in 2019. From 2008 to 2018, there were 462 equine racing and training deaths at Santa Anita, peaking with 59 in 2012.
Santa Anita officials point to the track’s significant safety improvements, and the numbers are trending downward as racing fatalities decreased by 79 percent from 2019 to 2022.
The question, however, is what percentage of horse fatalities is acceptable? Industry leaders indicate the answer is zero, but few believe that is realistic.
“The nature of the sport is such that as long as horses race there will be deaths of animals and humans,” Rizzo explained. “The issue is what can be done to make the sport safer. With the bad press from the recent incidents at Churchill Downs, the medication piece will be heavily scrutinized going forward. I want to believe the racing authorities are doing their very best to address the problems currently facing the industry but think the medication problem and the breakdowns that accompany its use will be with us for the foreseeable future.”
Overall improved health and safety for the horses and jockeys must always be priority number one. Thoroughbred horses are the superstars of racing. They deserve the same attention and commitment to safety that human athletes do.
It is not acceptable when you view a sporting event and are more concerned about the athletes surviving it than winning it. Sadly, that remains a reality each time thoroughbreds run.
These magnificent creatures were born to run. The least we can do is make it as safe as possible for them.
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3/11/2023
30 years later, Jim Valvano’s courage and determination still inspire
It’s hard to believe it’s been 30 years since basketball coach and broadcaster Jim Valvano gave his famous “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up” speech while accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award at the 1993 Espy Awards.
To honor Coach Valvano’s memory, I took the time recently to listen once again to his speech, and it inspires as much today as it did 30 years ago. Other than having to be helped up the steps to the stage at Madison Square Garden in New York by his fellow legendary coach and great friend Mike Krzyzewski, Valvano looked sharp dressed in a tuxedo and his voice was strong as he spoke words of wisdom and encouragement.
Known affectionately as Jimmy V, he was a determined, outgoing, emotional and friendly guy you would like to meet and get to know. And you would be better off for having had that experience. He began his coaching career in 1969 at Johns Hopkins and then coached at Bucknell and Iona before leading the North Carolina State Wolfpack to an NCAA tournament championship in 1983.
While his accomplishments as a college basketball coach and ESPN announcer and analyst are renowned, it’s what he did following his cancer diagnosis in June 1992 until his passing at age 47 in April 1993, that truly sets him apart as a caring and passionate human being. For that, he will never be forgotten.
Standing tall despite being in pain, Valvano spoke from the heart about how his N.C. State championship team taught him what he needed to face his diagnosis, treatment and impending death.
“Hope that things can get better in spite of adversity,” he said. “The ’83 team taught me that … taught me persistence, the idea of never, ever quitting.”
His sense of humor also came shining through when the awards show producers put a message on the teleprompter that he had 30 seconds left to wrap up his speech.
“I’ve got tumors all over my body, and I’m going to worry about some guy flashing a message that says I’ve got 30 seconds?” he quipped in typical Jimmy V fashion.
The heart of his speech was when he talked about life and announced the formation of the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.
“To me, there are three things we all should do every day,” he said. “Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is to think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears — could be happiness or joy.
“But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that (for) seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”
He emphasized being mindful of where you started, where you are, and where you’re going to be, learning from the past, being fully in the present moment, and having a vision for the future.
“I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life, you have to have a dream, a goal, and you have to be willing to work for it,” he said. “I look at where I am now and know what I want to do. What I would like to be able to do is to spend whatever time I have left and to give maybe some hope to others.”
Since its founding in 1993 with significant help from ESPN, the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research has been doing exactly that, giving hope to cancer patients and their loved ones by “funding the best and brightest scientists and over $310 million granted to breakthrough cancer research.”
The foundation’s website reports the progress Jim Valvano envisioned is happening: “The cancer death rate in the United States is down 33 percent since 1991. And cancer research has saved lives. There are 18 million cancer survivors in the U.S. today. That number is expected to rise to 22.5 million by 2032.”
The courage and humanitarian award that was presented to Valvano in 1993 honors tennis legend Arthur Ashe, the first African American male to win a Grand Slam tournament. Like Valvano, Ashe was an accomplished sports figure who proved to be inspirational and effective in making the world a better place.
The 1968 U.S. Open champion, Ashe won two additional Grand Slams during his career, the 1970 Australian Open and Wimbledon in 1975 where he beat the favored Jimmy Connors. Co-founder of the Association of Tennis Professionals, Ashe played for the U.S. Davis Cup team for 10 years and won three championships. He retired from tennis in 1980 due to heart issues and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985.
Ashe used his tennis celebrity to speak out and influence social justice and equality, including the campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, efforts to achieve acceptance of people everywhere, and advising parents to encourage their children intellectually and prepare them to be successful in areas other than sports and entertainment.
He contracted HIV believed to be from a tainted blood transfusion following heart surgery and passed away at the young age of 49 from complications of AIDS in February 1993. Like Coach Valvano, Ashe turned his attention to increasing education and awareness of the disease that killed him.
It was fitting that just months after Ashe’s death the award named for him and recognizing courage and humanitarianism was presented to Jim Valvano. Jimmy V’s mantra, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up,” also describes the dignity, integrity, courage and commitment of Arthur Ashe.
If so inclined, visit v.org or arthurashe.ucla.edu for more information about these two giants of our time and how you can help their causes.
And always remember to never give up no matter what challenges you face. Don’t ever give up.
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1/23/2023
Is it ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ time again for Brady and Rodgers?
When 12-year-old Michael Jackson and his brothers sang their hit song, “Never Can Say Goodbye” in 1971, they certainly weren’t singing about Tom Brady’s 40-day retirement last year before coming back to quarterback the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this season. And they weren’t referring to the annual “will he or won’t he play next year” dance Aaron Rodgers has with the Green Bay Packers.
The Jackson Five were singing a love song, but there’s not much to love when athletes play past their prime or hang on to win one more championship or break one more record when there isn’t too much left in the tank.
To be fair, Brady and Rodgers both had good statistics this year. Brady completed an NFL record 490 passes for 4,694 yards, 25 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Rodgers completed 350 of 542 passing attempts for 3,695 yards, 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.
Several teams would love to have this level of production from their quarterbacks, and they will probably get in line for a chance to have either of these future NFL Hall of Famers suit up for them.
And that, you see, is the problem. Neither led their team to a winning season. The Bucs and the Packers were both below .500 and the only reason Tampa made the playoffs is that its division was so weak. They may have put up some impressive numbers, but it was not in the same style as before.
There are some things true sports fans don’t want to see, even if it works out better for their favorite teams. The Bucs were defeated well before halftime in their wild card game and many of Brady’s passes floated like ducks. And when the Packers had to beat the Detroit Lions to have an opportunity to make the playoffs, Rodgers turned in a dismal 38.7 quarterback rating.
That isn’t the way to remember football legends such as these.
When players have earned elite status in their sport as both Brady and Rodgers have, it’s better to remember them hoisting Super Bowl and MVP awards than to see them leaving the field defeated.
Emmitt Smith was an all-time great running back for the Dallas Cowboys, winning three Super Bowls and earning eight Pro Bowl designations. When the Cowboys felt it was time to move on, Smith played two seasons with the Arizona Cardinals. He gained 1,193 yards over that time with Arizona, a level he surpassed in a single season nine times with Dallas.
I’m a Philadelphia Eagles fan, so you know what I think of the Cowboys. Even so, it just wasn’t right to see Emmitt Smith wearing the bright red Arizona uniform on his way to the career rushing record of 18,355 yards.
That was a tremendous achievement, but he was no longer putting fear into defenses when he finally crossed the finish line, and he should have been a career-long Cowboy.
The “Never Can Say Goodbye” syndrome is not limited to football. It’s alive and well in other sports, too.
I went to my first Major League Baseball game in 1966 in Philadelphia to see the Phillies play the San Francisco Giants and Willie Mays. He homered that night and played with his usual flair and greatness. But when I visited Shea Stadium in New York for a 1973 game between the Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, it was clear that Mays, then 43, was running on fumes and had played too long.
One of the great things during my years as a Phillies season ticket holder in the late 1970s and early 1980s was the pleasure of watching Steve Carlton pitch.
A four-time Cy Young Award winner, 10-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, the man known simply as “Lefty” won 329 games and lost 244 with a 3.22 earned run average and 4,136 strikeouts over 24 seasons. He won 20 or more games six times during his career and his last relatively good year was 1984 when he went 13-7 with a 3.58 ERA.
You knew when Lefty was pitching the Phillies were likely to win, and the game would be played quickly. Carlton didn’t waste any time on the mound and usually beat his opponents in two hours or less. He had no need for a pitch clock, unlike most pitchers today.
Carton left the Phillies in 1986 and played for the Giants, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins over the next two seasons, winning just 11 games while losing 21 before finally calling it a career. That isn’t the way you want to see a Hall of Fame great go out.
Boxing fans knew Muhammad Ali as one of the best fighters ever, and he was often ranked as the greatest heavyweight of all time. He won a gold medal at age 18 in the 1960 Summer Olympics and the heavyweight championship at age 22 when he defeated Sonny Liston. His three fights with Joe Frazier beginning in 1971 were epic, and then Ken Norton broke Ali’s jaw while handing him the second loss of his career in 1973.
Ali regained the heavyweight championship at age 32 in 1974 when he defeated George Foreman. He employed the “rope-a-dope” strategy and allowed Foreman to punch himself out before knocking an exhausted Foreman out in the eighth round.
Beginning in 1976, though, he clearly was not the fighter he used to be, winning a controversial decision over Norton and announcing his retirement afterward.
This first retirement didn’t last long, and in 1977 he took several hard shots to the head while defeating Earnie Shavers. His longtime doctor Ferdie Pacheco urged him to retire, but Ali ignored the advice and lost the championship title to an inexperienced Leon Spinks in 1978. He won a rematch later that year to become the first fighter to become heavyweight champion three times.
Ali retired a second time but again it didn’t last long, despite his beginning to experience vocal stutters and hand tremors. Incredibly, he was medically cleared to fight, and he returned to the ring in October 1980 against champion Larry Holmes. The Easton Assassin beat Ali easily, the only time Ali lost by the fight being stopped before going the distance.
While many people point to the Holmes fight as a contributor to Ali’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and pleaded with him to retire permanently, he didn’t comply until losing a December 1981 fight to Trevor Berbick. It was a sad way for the champion often called “The Greatest” to leave the ring.
With so much money involved today, it’s even more difficult for athletes to end their playing careers. I appreciate Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt, who abruptly retired in May of 1986 while the Phillies were on a West Coast trip.
With tears running down his face, Schmidt told the media his reason for walking away was simple. He was used to being the best and knew in his heart that he no longer was.
That’s a good measuring stick for other great athletes to follow. It’s too bad they rarely do.
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2022
12/31/2022
Roberto Clemente still sets an example 50 years after his tragic death
Most of the time it is exciting to have a birthday on New Year’s Eve. I was an instant tax deduction for being on earth just one day in 1956, I never had to go to school on my birthday and I’ve always kidded that my birthday is so important that the entire world counts down its last 10 seconds.
There was one birthday I remember well, though, on Dec. 31, 1972, that was not as joyous as the others. Because that was the day the world lost the great Roberto Clemente. I was happy I was finally old enough to get my driver’s license but saddened by the news of Clemente’s tragic end.
His passing was felt throughout Major League Baseball, but especially in Pittsburgh, where he was an all-time great player for the Pirates, and in Latin America, where he was well-known and respected for his baseball talent as well as his role as a humanitarian and community leader.
He was clear about the priority everyone should set in life by saying, “If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don’t do that, you are wasting your time on this earth.”
It was with this spirit and commitment that he lived and with the same conviction to help people in need that he died. He used his baseball fame to set an example for others, including in Nicaragua where he traveled in December 1972 for the Amateur World Series as the manager of the San Juan Senators.
While in Managua, he interacted freely with the people and played with the children. Like his fellow Puerto Ricans, the citizens of Nicaragua also revered the great Clemente.
Disaster struck on Dec. 23, 1972, when a devastating earthquake hit Nicaragua. With the memories of his successful visit there just two weeks earlier, Clemente quickly focused on doing what he could to help the people affected by the earthquake.
He was named the honorary chairman of the Nicaraguan earthquake relief efforts in Puerto Rico and the people responded by filling four plane loads and a sea barge with donated supplies, food, water, medicine and clothing.
Those donations, however, were not reaching the poor people who needed them most. Instead, word got back to Clemente that the Nicaraguan political leaders and the militia took what they wanted and sold the rest on the black market.
Roberto was livid and declared that he would personally travel to Nicaragua with the next shipment. He believed there was no way Nicaragua’s leader, Anastasio Somoza Debayle, would allow such stealing with Clemente present.
The people of Puerto Rico stood tall once again, responding to Clemente’s continued plea for assistance, and in a few days, another plane load of supplies was ready to go. The airplane available to fly to Nicaragua that day had a history of questionable maintenance, and its airworthiness was made even more doubtful when it was overloaded with supplies.
Sadly, the plane crashed into the ocean soon after takeoff, and the great Clemente was gone.
It was surreal to think we would no longer see Roberto’s unorthodox but effective approach to hitting, see him cruising into second base with yet another extra-base hit or watch in amazement as he picked up a ball in the right field corner and threw a strike to get the runner out sliding into third base.
Efforts to honor Clemente’s memory by doing good soon began, first with the Clemente Fund to fulfill his dream of building a sports complex for the young people of Puerto Rico. There they would learn to play baseball and more importantly learn to emulate the good character and humanitarianism of their deceased hero.
Those efforts led to the creation of the Roberto Clemente Foundation, whose mission is to promote positive change and community engagement through the example and inspiration of Roberto and whose belief is that he would prefer to be honored with service to the world rather than simple commemoration.
“The sudden and tragic passing of Roberto 50 years ago was a stunning blow to his family, friends, teammates, fans, and particularly to Puerto Ricans,” said Tom Brasuell, president of the Roberto Clemente Foundation. “However, to this day, his example of helping others has never ceased to inspire others around the world, and his humanitarian efforts live on through the Clemente family and the work of the Roberto Clemente Foundation.
“As we reflect on this great player, we continue his off-field legacy of serving those who are less fortunate. As long as there are people in need, there will be a need for the inspiration which Roberto embodies.”
His commitment to doing good for others may be best summed up by what he did for his former high school teacher Maria Isabel Caceres. When Maria was suffering from back pain years after his school days, Roberto went to her house, carried her to his car and drove her to San Juan to be treated by a doctor.
Incredibly, he did this for 15 days in a row until his favorite teacher was healed. And when she asked the doctor for the bill, she was told she didn’t owe even one cent. Roberto had already paid for her care.
When I think of the great Clemente, I remember seeing him play against the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia and throw out a runner at home plate. I remember watching him win the World Series Most Valuable Player award in 1971 and get his 3,000th and final major league hit on Sept. 30, 1972 – just three months before his passing – and his honor and humility in being the first Latino to reach 3,000 hits.
Clemente’s baseball achievements are indeed impressive – 1966 National League MVP, 12 Gold Glove Awards, four-time National League batting champion, two-time National League hits leader and being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously in 1973.
Early in 1973, I contacted Baltimore Orioles star third-baseman Brooks Robinson and asked him for a quote about Clemente for an article I wanted to write for my high school journalism class. Amazingly, Robinson responded, sending me a handwritten quote on Orioles’ stationery.
“At the time of his death, I believe Roberto was the greatest player in the game,” he wrote.
Clemente was one of the all-time great ballplayers, but he was an even better man. He lived a life of giving, and as we begin the New Year, we can help make the world, or at least our little part of it, a better place by following his worthy example.
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12/24/2022
Christmas comes early for free agents as Mets owner Steve Cohen not deterred by luxury tax
With most Americans watching their household budgets and doing their best to get by as inflation eats away at their weekly paycheck, there is no such money crunch in major league baseball. At least not for the big-money teams, and especially not the New York Mets.
As news spread that the deal between free-agent Carlos Correa and the San Francisco Giants fell through due to the Giants’ concerns regarding Correa’s physical examination, Mets owner Steve Cohen was ready, able, and willing to promptly add the All-Star to his already massive payroll. Correa has had back issues over the years, and San Francisco wanted second and third medical opinions supporting their multi-million-dollar commitment before signing on the dotted line.
Super-agent Scott Boras felt he and his client allowed sufficient time for the medical due diligence and it didn’t take long for him to get in touch with the Mets. I do not doubt that Boras has Steve Cohen high on his speed dial.
Cohen seems intent on making baseball fans forget about the original big spender, George Steinbrenner, and his buying sprees to add the biggest free agents to the New York Yankees beginning in the 1970s and 1980s. Remember Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Goose Gossage, and Dave Winfield, among others? It’s hard to believe, but Cohen makes Mr. Steinbrenner look like Mr. Scrooge.
This year alone, Cohen has committed more than $800 million in contracts of various lengths for just nine ballplayers: Correa ($315 million), Brandon Nimmo ($162 million), Edwin Diaz ($102 million), Justin Verlander ($87 million), Japanese pitcher Kodai Senga ($75 million), Jose Quintana ($26 million), Omar Narvaez ($15 million), Adam Ottavino ($15 million), and David Robertson ($10 million). Incredibly, he’s made these expensive additions to a team that won 101 games last year before losing in the Wild Card round of the playoffs.
Give Cohen a red suit and a white beard. He’s the greatest thing since Santa Claus. But when an owner feels compelled to spend such lavish amounts to add to a team that is already among baseball’s elites, you must wonder where things will go from here. For every Mets, Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, and Philadelphia Phillies team able to attract the high-priced superstars, there are baseball’s have-nots, the teams that put their rosters together with young players often not yet ready for the majors, aging veterans past their prime, and perhaps some bubble gum and glue.
You know exactly what I’m referring to if you follow the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Oakland Athletics, or other similar teams that haven’t added a top free agent in years. They are
the teams that have financial outlooks unable to support committing $300 million over ten or more years for a single player.
While there is no salary cap in Major League Baseball, teams are subject to a Competitive Balance Tax when they exceed defined payroll levels. This so-called luxury tax increases as teams spend higher than the threshold in multiple seasons. Its effectiveness is questionable, though, when Steve Cohen shrugs off paying an estimated nearly $109 million luxury tax for 2023 and pushes forward with his attempt to buy a World Series Championship.
Cohen is worth an estimated $17 billion, so the luxury tax to him is like the proverbial gnat on an elephant. The tax penalties are certainly not stopping him from his quest to bring a winner to Citi Field. To put things in perspective, the nearly $109 million luxury tax exceeds the entire team payrolls of some teams.
It’s no wonder that small-market teams want to have a salary cap included in the next collective bargaining agreement, but those negotiations are years away. And with the major league baseball players’ union and big-market teams not interested, implementing a salary cap in baseball remains unlikely.
The small-market teams do break through from time to time and have occasional winning seasons, and that will happen again with the expanded playoff format. But those are exceptions to the rule. I don’t expect to see any World Series games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh any time soon.
Will today’s high-priced free agents perform at a high level to justify their big contracts? The answer is often a mixed bag depending upon their individual statistics and their team’s won and lost records. Perhaps an appropriate measuring stick is Joe DiMaggio who sought a $40,000 salary for the 1941 season. He settled for $37,500, then an unheard-of amount since the average American annual income was less than $1,400. His 1941 salary would be worth about a million in today’s dollars.
Fans could not believe Joltin’ Joe was being paid such an exorbitant amount. Did the Yankees get their money’s worth? All DiMaggio did was hit in a record 56 consecutive games and win the Most Valuable Player award over Boston’s Ted Williams who hit an incredible .406 that season, the last player in the major leagues to top .400. The Yankees won 101 games, and the American League pennant with Boston a distant second.
The Yankees also won the 1941 World Series in five games over the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Time will tell if Carlos Correa and his high-priced Mets teammates bring home a championship. The team fell short last year despite a boatload of riches. But with Steve Cohen at the helm, the Mets know they can always buy a bigger boat.
Unfortunately, many other teams will never be able to buy their way to the World Series. That’s something baseball commissioner Rod Manfred, the owners, the players, and their union all need to fix. Otherwise, the days of teams drafting and developing most of their core players will be gone forever, replaced by what can be bought. And that is not the best way to move the game of summer forward.
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10/29/2022
Phillies in the World Series: just another strange baseball occurrence
Strange things happen in baseball and are especially noticeable in the playoffs and World Series.
Ground balls take bad hops to become hits. Singles hitters smash home runs. Scorching line drives are caught for outs, and soft grounders become hits. Players not known for being swift on the basepaths steal bases.
A long fly ball like the one Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto hit against Atlanta in the Division Series bounces oddly off the wall and a double becomes a game-changing inside-the-park home run. It was the first inside-the-park homer by a catcher in postseason history.
Such occurrences are both exhilarating and maddening depending on which team you are rooting for, and it’s likely that one way or another a few such plays are going to show up at key moments in the World Series.
Already, the Philadelphia Phillies, the first sixth seed in National League history, found a way to beat favored playoff opponents all the way to the NL pennant. Yes, my beloved Phillies are back in the World Series for the first time since 2009. Their opponents, the Houston Astros are favored, but the Phillies have embraced being the underdog.
It’s Houston’s fourth fall classic in six years. The experts say the Phillies are fortunate just to be there, but strange things happen in baseball, and you never know until the games are played who will be the champions.
No matter what happens, the Phillies, who finished third in the strong NL East behind Atlanta and the New York Mets, have already overachieved. They’ve been playing with house money all along and see no reason to stop now. After all, strange things are common in baseball and the ball seems to be rolling Philadelphia’s way lately.
That isn’t always the case. My first experience with strange occurrences affecting a team happened back in 1964, the first year I followed baseball and the Phillies. I was seven years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
The Phillies breezed through spring and summer, spending 125 days in first place. Most Valuable Player candidate Johnny Callison was on his way to 31 home runs and 104 runs batted in and Dick Allen – who belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame and hopefully will finally be elected when next eligible in 2024 – hit .318 with 29 homers and 91 RBIs to win the National League Rookie of the Year award. Pitcher Jim Bunning won 19 games against eight losses with a 2.63 earned run average, and lefty Chris Short went 17-9 with a 2.20 ERA. Bunning pitched a perfect game on Father’s Day at Shea Stadium over the Mets and Callison hit a game-winning home run in the All-Star game.
It looked like the stars were aligning, and late in September, the Phillies held a six-and-one-half game lead with just twelve games to play. They were on the verge of winning the NL pennant for the first time since 1950 and the team sold 90,000 World Series tickets to their fans. That’s when the strange occurrences bit them.
In the first game of a homestand at Connie Mack Stadium, utility player Chico Ruiz of the Cincinnati Reds stole home with future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson at bat and the Reds won the game 1-0. Phillies manager Gene Mauch couldn’t believe Ruiz would pull such a bone-headed stunt with one of the game’s best hitters at the plate, but that’s exactly what Ruiz did.
Incredibly, that strange game was the first of ten consecutive losses for the Phillies while both Cincinnati and St. Louis had eight-game winning streaks to close the gap in the standings. When it was over, the Cardinals won the pennant, and the Phillies were left wondering what happened.
I was disappointed but remained steadfast with my team during both winning and losing seasons. It was another 12 years before the 1976 Phillies made the playoffs and another four until the 1980 Phillies finally won the World Series Championship.
The ’76 team was steamrolled by the Big Red Machine from Cincinnati, but once again strange occurrences prevented the 1977 team from winning the pennant. Ask any Phillies fan about the so-called ‘Black Friday’ playoff game in ’77 when the fans rattled LA pitcher Burt Hooton and umpire Bruce Froemming missed a call at first base, beginning a strange sequence of events that resulted in the Los Angeles Dodgers snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. I was there to witness that deflating game, and the ride back to Wilkes-Barre was quiet and uncomfortable.
The Dodgers eliminated the Phillies the next day in a game that was delayed for two hours and then played in a steady rain. It should have been postponed, but major league baseball decided the game would be played despite the terrible weather. Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton threw a wet baseball for a wild pitch that scored a run for LA, and another run scored on a suicide squeeze play on the wet field.
The 1980 National League Championship Series between the Phillies and the Astros, then an NL team, is often cited as one of the best playoff series in baseball history. Four of the five games went extra innings, and the Astros held a late-inning lead with Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan on the mound in game five before the Phillies stormed back and won the game 8-7 in ten innings. Incredible and highly unlikely, but it happened.
The Phillies won the World Series again in 2008 led by Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and pitchers Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge as they defeated the Tampa Rays. Even then, rain suspended the deciding game and the Phillies had to wait a little longer
to hoist the trophy. They returned to the fall classic in 2009 but lost the Series to the New York Yankees.
I have had the opportunity to attend many of the Phillies’ playoff and World Series games since 1976 and I will be there again this year with my sons cheering for the 2022 team. You know the Phillies, the team most people have a hard time believing is in the World Series.
But strange things happen in baseball, and whichever team pops champagne and lifts the World Series trophy will no doubt benefit from an unusual break or two. That’s baseball, and one of the many reasons I love it.
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10/21/2022
Dikembe Mutombo has always made things better … on and off the court
Dikembe Mutombo has always reached for the stars. At 7 feet, 2 inches tall, he’s a little closer to them than most, and throughout his life, he has consistently reached them.
The 57-year-old Mutombo is now facing a personal health crisis, having been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He is receiving treatment in Atlanta and is reported to be in “great spirits.” That isn’t surprising, as everything this giant of a man does is with a positive, energetic and determined attitude that no challenge is too large.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo native first came to the U.S. at age 21 in 1987 to study at Georgetown University on a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) scholarship. It was there that the Hoyas basketball coach John Thompson recruited him to join the team. He was relatively new to basketball, having taken up the sport around age 16. Thompson told him he could play at the highest level, earn enough money to last a lifetime, and then do whatever he wanted. After a while, Mutombo realized basketball could be his pathway to doing bigger things and helping many people.
Although Mutombo is now fluent in nine languages, he spoke very little English when he arrived at Georgetown and studied in the university’s English as a Secondary Language (ESL) program. A novice basketball player struggling to communicate with faculty, coaches, teammates and others, he still flourished at Georgetown and graduated in 1991 with bachelor’s degrees in linguistics and diplomacy.
The Denver Nuggets selected Mutombo with the fourth overall pick in the 1991 National Basketball Association draft. It was a year later that he developed his signature move after blocking a shot, shaking his finger side to side as if to say don’t challenge me. The finger wag and “not today” mantra became famous and were featured comedically many years later in an auto insurance commercial where Dikembe was running through a supermarket blocking customers from tossing items into their shopping carts.
Mutombo played in the NBA from 1991 to 2009 for the Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks and Houston Rockets. His career was impressive, including eight-time NBA All-Star; four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year; three-time NBA shots blocked leader; two-time NBA rebounding leader; NBA All-Rookie First Team; All-NBA Second Team; and his number 55 was retired by the Hawks and the Nuggets.
He finished with 12,359 rebounds, 11,729 points, and 3,289 blocked shots, leading the NBA in blocked shots five seasons in a row and blocks per game for a record-setting three consecutive seasons. Mutombo was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015.
That’s quite a career, but Mutombo was just getting started.
As Coach Thompson told him he could, Mutombo utilized his fame as a basketball player to take on a more important role, that of humanitarian and founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to improve living conditions in his native country.
He remembered the lack of medical care and the conditions and diseases, many of them preventable, that took the lives of family members, friends and neighbors while he was growing up. Sadly, he also remembered his mother could not get to a distant medical facility for care after suffering a stroke that took her life because the roads were blocked by the military during a time of war.
So, he did something about it, contributing millions of his own money and raising the rest to build the first new hospital in his region of the Congo in 45 years. Named in memory of his mother, the $29 million Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, one of the most modern medical facilities in Africa, opened in 2007.
Patients are vaccinated and treated for a wide variety of diseases. Care is provided for patients suffering from malnutrition. Women are screened and treated to combat a high rate of cervical cancer, and those who can no longer walk have joint replacement surgeries.
Mutombo then turned his sights on giving young people access to modern education by building the Samuel Mutombo Institute of Science and Entrepreneurship in memory of his father who taught for 37 years in the Congo. There are currently more than 400 children enrolled in the school from kindergarten to sixth grade.
While Mutombo is passionate about improving conditions in his troubled homeland, he is also making a difference in America where his foundation is partnering with Georgetown to provide medical care for visually impaired children in the Washington, D.C., area. He is also a longtime supporter of the Special Olympics among other charities and initiatives.
“I choose to make a difference. I choose to make a change. I choose to save lives,” Mutombo said in a video on his foundation’s website, http://www.dmf.org. “I want to see how many more lives I can save, not just by offering the health care system, but how many more lives can I change by giving somebody else an opportunity to succeed. We have a moral duty to be responsible for what is happening around us.”
Everyone can make a difference in some way. When my brother-in-law William was in the Peace Corps in Nepal many years ago, he led a project to build a new, two-room school and completed it for about $1,800. Imagine that. So, it’s true even small steps help make things better.
Dikembe and his family are thankful for the outpouring of prayers and well-wishes following his diagnosis. I, too, pray for the recovery of this remarkable man. The world can use many more people like him.
Remember, you don’t have to be seven feet tall or famous like Mutombo to do great things.
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10/8/2022
There’s still time to take the perception and use study – Great years spent in Downtown Wilkes-Barre and promise for the future
It took only 10 minutes to complete, and when I was finished, it felt good that I shared my input about Downtown Wilkes-Barre.
I’m talking about the few moments I spent completing the 2022 Downtown Wilkes-Barre Perception & Use Survey, conducted every four years since 2014 by the Diamond City Partnership (DCP), Wilkes-Barre’s non-profit downtown management organization. The good news is you haven’t missed the opportunity to participate since the DCP is keeping the survey open for a few more weeks to give everyone a chance to complete it.
You can access the survey online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DtwnWB2022
If you don’t have access to a computer, you can request a printed copy of the survey by calling the Diamond City Partnership’s office at 570-208-9737.
So, why should you spend ten minutes of your valuable time in this way? I did it because of Downtown Wilkes-Barre’s importance, not only to the city itself but to the entire Wyoming Valley and surrounding area. Whether you realize it or not, Public Square and its surrounding area serve as a significant calling card when parents bring their children to look at our colleges and universities and when businesses look at locating in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
I also did the survey because I spent a dozen years working downtown – seven years at what was then Fowler, Dick & Walker, The Boston Store, during high school and college, and another five years while at Geisinger when my office was located on Public Square. Those were great times, separated by a few decades, but each experience magnified the importance of a vibrant Downtown Wilkes-Barre.
It was during the 1970s that I went to high school at Wyoming Valley West in Kingston and worked at The Boston Store after school and on Saturdays. Following the Agnes flood in 1972, our school adopted a half-day schedule for my junior and senior years. The upper classes went to school in the morning while the freshmen and sophomores attended in the afternoon. By 12:20 p.m. I was out of school and on my way to work.
I spent my college years at what is now Wilkes University and must have walked up and down South Franklin Street thousands of times. I’d go to work at the store in the morning, then leave for classes and return to work afterward. My timecard looked like a puzzle with its numerous readings in and out each day.
We had a tremendous group of people at The Boston Store, and it was a great place for me to work while going to school. My mom, Elsie, worked in the linens department, my brother Bob on the parking deck, my sister-in-law Mary Ellen in the bakery, and I spent most of my time in auditing, which was funny because I’ve always been more comfortable with words than numbers. Working with leaders Sam Jones and Richard Salerno, we completed a daily sales audit and ensured that every cash register was balanced. It was strange to go through the darkened store early in the morning before it opened to manually read each cash register and get it ready for shoppers. This was before computerized check-outs.
Another early morning duty was to go to the Post Office on South Main Street to retrieve the store’s mail and then stop at Nardone Brothers to pick up pizza and deliver it to the store’s snack bar. I occasionally served as an unofficial taste tester, popping a piece of pizza into the toaster oven before the store opened.
When you worked nights, you had the opportunity to go to Lowe’s on West Market Street for something to eat and drink. Many of my Boston Store colleagues as well as Wilkes and King’s College friends were often found at this longtime downtown good-time attraction.
Those years following the flood were a time of great resiliency as downtown and the Wyoming Valley were cleaned up, rebuilt, and moved forward. There’s nothing like a natural disaster to bring the community together for the greater good.
Downtown Wilkes-Barre was important then and it’s still important today.
I returned downtown in 2006 and spent the next five years working with Conrad Schintz, John Wiercinski, and others in an office building on the Square. I often took lunchtime walks around the Wilkes campus, stopping on my way back at Pete’s Place, Circles on the Square, and Farmers Market. I enjoyed interacting with the people that filled the downtown and having Boscov’s nearby made shopping convenient.
We don’t see as much of that today since many people continue to work from home, but daily traffic is gradually returning. That’s great news. We need it for our businesses to succeed.
Remember it’s our downtown. You can help shape its future by supporting its businesses and taking the Perception & Use Survey. Results from past surveys have prioritized efforts to make the area cleaner and safer and shaped investments to improve Public Square. What’s next will be determined in large part by our input.
Our opinions do matter, and now’s the time to make your voice heard.
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9/10/2022
Get a good education – That’s what more and more sports stars are doing
It took Los Angeles Super Bowl champion Aaron Donald and New Orleans Saints quarterback Jameis Winston seven years, Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu 12 years, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors 13 years, Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Morgan 27 years, and Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath 42 years.
Some said they did it because they made a promise to their parents that they would. They all said it was well worth it, and Polamalu said he did it to emphasize the importance of education.
They are a few of the growing list of athletes and sports legends who left school to begin their professional careers before graduating but returned to the classroom much later to earn their degrees.
“Little Joe” Morgan played baseball at Oakland City College while taking classes toward a business career but signed a contract with the Houston Colt 45s (now the Houston Astros) in 1962 and began his professional career before graduating. The lure of a $3,000 signing bonus and a $500 per month salary was enough back then to convince him it was time to begin the road to the majors and he made his debut with Houston on September 21, 1963.
Before signing, Morgan promised his parents he would complete his degree work when his playing days were over. Instead, he moved from the field to the broadcasting booth where he was an Emmy Award-winning baseball analyst for many years. Still, he couldn’t forget the promise he made to his parents, and he finally made good on that promise by earning his college degree at the California State University East Bay in 1990.
Morgan often said it took 22 years playing in the major leagues to earn induction into the Hall of Fame and 27 years to earn his college degree – and that he was thrilled with both accomplishments.
I am sure that my friend and colleague Tim Gailey, now retired in Asheville, North Carolina, is happy that Curry earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in sociology from Davidson College in May 2022. Tim is a fellow Davidson alum and wore his college colors proudly when Curry led the Wildcats to an NCAA Basketball Tournament Regional Final in 2008. Curry’s team beat Gonzaga in the first round, Georgetown in the second round, and Wisconsin in the regional semi-final. Tiny Davidson then gave powerful Kansas all they could handle before losing by just two points, their dream of a Final Four appearance dashed, but not their enthusiasm and pride.
Before their incredible NCAA run, I didn’t recall that Tim went to Davidson, even though we must have talked about it before I hired him to work with me at Geisinger Health System. In March of 2008, though, our entire office building knew about Tim’s alma mater.
Curry is certain to make it to the Basketball Hall of Fame when he hangs up his sneakers. His accomplishments are already the stuff of legends, including being named to the NBA All-Rookie team
in 2010, the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team in 2021, and the NBA All-Star game and Finals Most Valuable Player in 2022. He is a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player and an eight-time NBA All-Star. What’s more, he said he is nowhere near being finished with his playing career.
When Curry left Davidson in 2009, he was one semester shy of graduating. He completed his coursework during the NBA lockout in 2011 and while he was out of the lineup due to an injury earlier this year. In addition to earning his college degree, Davidson inducted him into the school’s Hall of Fame and made him the first Wildcat to have his number (30) retired. That’s an impressive trifecta.
It was five years ago that the then 64-year-old Joe Namath finally earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Alabama. His previous major accomplishment at the University of Alabama was leading Coach Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide to the national championship in 1964. Instead of returning to school the following year, he left Alabama to play for the New York Jets, was named the American Football League 1965 Rookie of the Year, and a few years later he quarterbacked the Jets to a victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
That was the AFL’s first Super Bowl championship, the victory that Namath guaranteed, and Broadway Joe’s fame was secured. Returning to finish college had to be the furthest thing from his mind when he was doing television commercials, throwing touchdown passes, winning games, and having fun at Bachelors’ Three, the bar he owned in Manhattan.
All the same, not completing college nagged at him, mainly because he promised his mother he would go back to school. That empty promise was always in the back of his mind. He told her he would finish but hadn’t done so. Finally, when his daughter, Jessica went to the University of Alabama, Joe Willie decided it was time for him to return. He showed it’s never too late, even if it’s four decades later.
Today, when the news we hear from college sports focuses on things like schools changing conferences and student-athletes having the ability to profit from their name and likeness, it seems the classroom is moving even farther away than before. Cheers to the schools that compete on the athletic fields and maintain high graduation rates.
Seeing so many professional athletes go back to school and complete their education is a tremendous example for the young people who idolize them and follow every move they make. Whether it’s earning a college degree or mastering a trade, stick to your studies. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I view education as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.”
No matter where life takes you, never stop learning.
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8/6/2022
Celebrating the life of Bill Russell, a giant on and off the court
The recent passing of basketball great Bill Russell was much more than the loss of a basketball legend. Given Russell’s monumental contributions to the NBA and its fans as a player and coach, his legacy is secure. It’s his role as a social activist, often considered controversial, that sets him apart well beyond sports.
Basketball Hall of Famer and popular analyst Charles Barkley released a statement that says it well: “Bill Russell’s passing is not just an NBA loss. It is a world loss. When your actions match your words on important issues, you are a great man. Not just a great basketball player. The word ‘Hero’ is tossed around a lot. But today it is perfect.”
Hall of Fame champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar released a message that stated, “Bill Russell was the quintessential big man – not because of his height but because of the size of his heart. In basketball, he showed us how to play with grace and passion. In life, he showed us how to live with compassion and joy.”
Russell didn’t care about his personal statistics. Described as being “limited” offensively, he was a defensive stalwart and typically ruled the boards rebounding and the lane blocking shots. He was more concerned about the Boston Celtics winning as a team than any individual statistic.
And win they did. Russell played 13 years in the NBA with Boston, three seasons as a player-coach, and the Celtics won 11 championships during that time.
During the 1964 NBA finals when the Celtics faced Wilt Chamberlain and the Warriors, Wilt averaged 29.2 points and an incredible 27.6 rebounds per game while Russell averaged only 11.2 points but with an impressive 25.2 rebounds per game.
Wilt won the individual stats battle, but Bill and his Celtics played better team ball and won the championship.
Russell always did what he needed to do to win and make other players better. Former NBA player and coach Don Nelson told NBA.com Turner Sports Interactive there were two types of superstars, one who “makes himself look good at the expense of the other guys on the floor,” and another selfless type who “makes the players around him look better than they are.”
Bill Russell, Nelson insisted, was the latter.
Russell was a two-time NCAA champion leading the University of San Francisco Dons to the title in 1955 and 1956, a five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and 12-time All-Star. He was an Olympian gold medalist in 1956, the first black head coach of any professional sports team in North America and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 as a player and again in 2021 as a coach.
That’s an incredible resume of athletic accomplishments, but Russell’s most important contributions may well have been larger than basketball.
Despite how bad he felt after losing in the 1967 NBA finals to a powerful Philadelphia 76ers team led by Chamberlain, he was proud to be congratulated by his grandfather for successfully coaching a team where black and white players coexisted in harmony.
Russell had strong feelings about equality and social justice and was not afraid to voice them. His intense drive to win carried over from basketball to racial and other social issues, and he was often both admired and criticized for the stands he took against inequality, racism, and the Vietnam War.
Along with other players from the Celtics and St. Louis Hawks, he boycotted a 1961 exhibition game to be played in Lexington, Kentucky, when the black players on both teams were refused service at a local restaurant. Through every challenge or important societal issue, he always stood tall.
Fans and sportswriters alike often speculated about how Russell felt about white people and some of his statements during the volatile 1960s fed into the speculation.
Yet he later spoke admirably about whites who positively affected his career and life, including his high school coach, George Powles, who first encouraged him to play basketball; his college coach, Phil Woolpert, who integrated the basketball program at USF; Red Auerbach who coached him and then hired him as the first black NBA coach; and Walter Brown, founder and original owner of the Celtics, who paid him an impressive rookie salary that was close to the amount paid to accomplished and top-earning veteran player Bob Cousy. Russell told Sports Illustrated in 1963 that he “never met a finer person” than Powles.
Russell’s beliefs about people centered around respect and dignity. When he began his coaching tenure in Boston, he said he could treat everyone fairly because the most important thing was not race, but respect for each person’s ability. He insisted that Auerbach hired him because Red believed and respected that Russell could coach, not to make history because of the color of Russell’s skin. Likewise, race would not be a factor in Russell’s coaching.
It was a mutual respect that resulted in Russell and his strongest competitor, Chamberlain, having a long-time friendship that survived the toughest athletic competition, as well as some misunderstandings.
Wilt’s mother would feed Bill a home-cooked meal when the Celtics visited Philadelphia. Then, after the Celtics won, Mrs. Chamberlain remarked she shouldn’t feed him so well the next time he came to town. (Incidentally, Russell played a game against the 76ers at the Kingston Armory in the 1960s and the Celtics dined at Aldino’s Manor in Wilkes-Barre, now the site of Valley Chevrolet.)
And when the media and fans called the mighty Wilt a “loser” because the Celtics were perennial champions, Chamberlain replied if that was the case, he certainly was in good company because Russell beat everyone.
The biggest victory, though, is respecting people for who they are individually and treating them with dignity, rather than any other misguided definition or grouping. Let’s hope that people today and in the future make that their victory, too.
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7/23/2022
The Three GOATS of Men’s Tennis
Who is the GOAT – the Greatest of All Time? That’s a question sports fans love to debate, whether it’s declaring the glory of the 1927 New York Yankees, the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, or the individual career accomplishments of athletes throughout the world of sports.
For some time, men’s tennis fans around the globe have been expressing support for one of the Big Three – Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, and Novak Djokovic – and strong arguments can be advanced for each as the greatest in the sport’s history.
Discussion about the greatest players of all time in any sport centers around winning championships. By this measure, there’s no doubt about the exceptional performance of the Big Three. In the last 18 years, 63 of the 75 men’s singles grand slam tournaments have been won by either Djokovic, Nadal, or Federer. That’s an incredible 84 percent.
But don’t ask Pete Sampras who is the best. Before Roger, Rafa, and Novak, Sampras held the record with 14 career grand slam tournament titles, followed by Roy Emerson with 12, Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg each with 11, Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi each with eight, and John McEnroe with seven. It appeared the record Sampras set by winning the 2002 U.S. Open would stand for a long time. But that was before Federer came onto the scene, followed by Nadal and then Djokovic.
Sampras told Sports Illustrated last year that there is no single greatest player. Much better to acknowledge the past twenty years or so as a unique time when we have been blessed to have three men’s tennis players rise to heights previously unseen nor imagined.
Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic were tied for the most career grand slam titles at the end of last year with 20. Nadal, with a history of injuries, then dug deep and won this year’s Australian and French Open tournaments to raise his grand slam titles to 22. He suffered an abdominal tear and was forced to default his Wimbledon semifinal match to Nick Kyrgios. Djokovic then defeated Kyrgios for his 21st career grand slam title.
Nadal’s injury and default were bad news heading into the summer hard court season since he was halfway to a calendar grand slam of winning all four major tournaments – the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and the United States Open – in the same year, an amazing achievement completed only one time in 1969 by Laver.
The 36-year-old Nadal hopes to be ready to play in the U.S. Open in New York beginning on August 29, but that depends on how quickly he heals from his latest injury. Djokovic remains doubtful to play in the tournament due to travel restrictions related to not being vaccinated against COVID-19, and Federer, following another knee surgery and turning 41 years old next month, has not played in a tournament since last year’s Wimbledon. At an event honoring a century of Wimbledon champions this month, Federer said he hopes he can return to the grass courts near London for one last tournament next year.
In addition to their success on the courts, Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are admired for their ability to win with humility, lose with honor (while continually working on improving their game), make the world a better place through their charity work, and set a standard of excellence and class that will be hard, if not impossible, to match.
At age 35, Djokovic is the youngest of the Big Three and the most likely to add to his career grand slam titles. It appears the page is turning on their era, and rather than wasting time and effort arguing about who is the greatest, we should admire the talent, dedication, consistency, mental toughness, physical fitness, athleticism, strategy, and class consistently shown by these magnificent players.
Perhaps that’s the greatest lesson we can teach our young athletes today. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But you must always maintain respect for your sport, yourself, the fans, and your opponents.
There are some other clear-cut GOATS in sports that are hard to argue. Greatest relief pitcher? Mariano Rivera of the Yankees. He threw one pitch primarily, batters knew it was coming, and yet they rarely beat him. Greatest home run hitter? Babe Ruth. Others have hit more career homers, but when the Babe did it, he was hitting more home runs individually than other entire major league teams could hit. The greatest pitcher in baseball history? They don’t honor the best hurlers annually with the Cy Young Award for nothing. Young won an incredible 511 games in his career. Good luck to any of today’s pitchers coming within 200 wins of that record.
Who is the greatest hitter in baseball history? How about Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox? The last man to hit .400 in a season, Williams won the Triple Crown in 1942 but did not play in 1943, 1944, and 1945 due to serving in the military during World War II. Williams also sacrificed considerable playing time in 1952 and 1953 when he was called back to serve in Korea.
Greatest women’s tennis player? Serena Williams remains one grand slam tournament championship from tying Margaret Court’s record of 24 major titles but has dominated her sport unlike any other, not even Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, or Steffi Graf. Greatest women’s golfer? Anika Sorenstam.
The greatest thoroughbred horse of all time is Secretariat. Check the record books and watch some videos of this champion in action and you’ll be amazed.
Keep the debates going for fun if you must but remember to be like the Big Three. Enjoy all we have and keep it classy.
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6/11/2022
Flag Day in baseball good opportunity to come together on social reform
The manager in the baseball movie, Bull Durham, said, “This is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball.”
Great line, but baseball is much more complicated. So is life.
Baseball is a strategic sport centered on the cat-and-mouse interaction that takes place during every at-bat. Pitch selection, speed, location and sequence are based upon the hurler’s strengths and the hitter’s abilities. Defenders position themselves according to hitters’ tendencies and teams must get 27 outs to win a game; they can’t run out the clock. Winners play team ball, react quickly and do the little things that add up to success.
So much of baseball comes down to strategy and teamwork, and sometimes that goes beyond the game itself.
Flag Day calls to mind Chicago Cubs outfielder Rick Monday’s heroics in April 1976 during the U.S. bicentennial when a man and his son ran onto the field at Dodger Stadium attempting to set an American flag on fire. Monday swiftly ran from his outfield position and removed the gas-soaked flag before the pair could ignite it, spoiling their planned protest.
And who can forget the American flag that flew over the mangled remains of the Twin Towers after September 11, 2001, or the huge flags that were unfurled days later when baseball returned to the field to honor the lives lost, the country attacked and those left to pick up the pieces?
With the senseless mass shootings, racial tension and other ongoing societal issues and challenges we face today, people again want to be heard. San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler is so displeased with what is happening that he recently announced he won’t participate in the playing of the national anthem and honoring the flag before each game until things change for the better.
It would be great if effective solutions were that easy, but even Kapler doubts his actions will “move the needle.”
While many of us prefer that sports figures and other celebrities stay in their lane, they, too, have the Constitutional right to freedom of speech. It’s important to shine a light on important topics, but public figures, with their ability to influence, must consider their actions and words carefully, especially when their messages are symbolic and can be interpreted differently.
As a result, their intent is often lost in the noise. With so many Americans insulted by protests associated with the flag and national anthem, is that the best way to move forward together? Does it make sense to alienate so many people when it’s going to take cooperation, compromise and teamwork to make a true difference?
Kapler appeared for the national anthem on Memorial Day to honor our military, but that exception itself highlights the need to find ways other than mere symbolic gestures if we want to encourage positive action and attain true social reform.
Manager Tony LaRussa of the Chicago White Sox agrees there are many problems to address in our country but emphasizes that actions interpreted as dishonoring the flag are not the best way. The flag means too much to our veterans and Gold Star families who have lost loved ones in our defense.
Kapler asked if our country’s leadership is dedicated to representing our best interests. He wonders if the U.S. is really “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Those questions must be answered. But is a two-minute symbolic gesture before an athletic event the best way to move forward?
Kapler’s Giants are in the Congressional district served by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Perhaps Gabe should invite the Speaker and her colleagues to a meeting with the team, its employees and fans to ask those questions, and share concerns and suggestions. Might that be more effective than hanging in the dugout until it’s time for the first pitch?
All professional sports teams could conduct similar events. The Washington Nationals, given their geography, have a wonderful opportunity to get the attention of Congress and the White House. Imagine similar productive efforts in sports cities from sea to shining sea.
We need more teams to do things like the New York Yankees and Tampa Rays did recently when they used their social media platforms to provide “facts about gun violence in America” rather than the typical live commentary and game updates normally provided.
“We all deserve to be safe – in America,” the Rays posted. “The most recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have shaken us to the core. This cannot become normal. We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way.”
The Yankees posted to the team’s more than 3.6 million Twitter followers, “The devastating events that have taken place in Uvalde, Buffalo, and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable.”
Those messages are easy to understand, and there’s no room for people to wonder what the teams are saying, no need to interpret symbolic gestures.
Baseball did a great thing in 1947 when it righted a wrong as Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke the color barrier in the National and American Leagues. Baseball was also an effective social reform catalyst during the 1960s when players such as Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Roberto Clemente, and other minority players won fans over with their play and daily example.
It can be that catalyst again.
American poet Walt Whitman is paraphrased as saying, “I see great things in baseball. It’s our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.”
To repair our losses and be a blessing, we must not ignore problems, but approach them with the same principles that make baseball great: teamwork, sacrifice, smart strategy and total effort until the last out. It’s the formula to promote balanced reform that respects the rights of all citizens while ensuring their safety and well-being.
The many thousands who stood tall for the flag and made the ultimate sacrifice for us would be impressed by our honoring them with such commitment to taking positive actions to make our country and world better.
That’s the way to play ball both on and off the field. Anything else is just lip service.
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5/28/2022
Transforming lives and transforming the downtown
In many ways, the goals of Keystone Mission and Diamond City Partnership (DCP), Downtown Wilkes-Barre’s non-profit management organization, are the same.
They’re both about transformation to a better tomorrow. Keystone Mission for homeless people determined to succeed, and DCP transforming the downtown to thrive given the realities of life and business after COVID.
Justin Behrens, Executive Director and CEO of Keystone Mission, says their work is building a community of hope by serving the homeless and educating the public on the challenges of homelessness. “Yes, we help feed and clothe people in need,” he adds. “But we also guide them through a proven process that includes instructional classes and various opportunities to better themselves. We include educational and housing programs, so our homeless clients are not only clean and well-fed, but they also gain job skills and life skills needed to move forward.”
The key, he insists, is to build relationships and provide a foundation so people in need can begin or return to happy and productive lives.
Similarly, Diamond City Partnership works continually to build relationships for a better Downtown Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding community.
“Downtown Wilkes-Barre is working to recover from the negative effects of the pandemic on the downtown economy,” says DCP Executive Director Larry Newman. “Businesses are slowly bringing employees back to the office, which certainly helps our downtown merchants and restaurants. But there are additional challenges created by the pandemic, including increased numbers of at-risk individuals. Diamond City Partnership, local government, Keystone Mission, along with its fellow social service agencies, and other partners are all focused on solving the challenge of helping those in need get off the streets and into effective services designed to help them put homelessness behind them.”
That’s the win/win the downtown needs to ensure the area is safe, clean, vibrant and inviting to businesses, employees, customers, visitors and students, now and well into the future.
Justin emphasizes that many of the homeless are not what the overall public perception is of people with no roof over their head or no place to go. “We find people who need our help for several reasons,” he says, “including the loss of employment, personal and family hardships, and other factors. Not all are abusing alcohol or drugs, and the vast majority can get back on their feet – with some well-planned help.”
To put a face to homelessness in our community, Justin shared Joe’s story. Joe, 68, came to Keystone Mission after living on the street after his home was destroyed by fire, and he had no money to get a new, more expensive place to live. Joe, who previously volunteered with a church group to help people in need, does not do drugs and hasn’t had a drink in many years. Displaced by the fire, he couldn’t go to the local homeless shelter because his photo ID expired. He struggled daily to get something to eat and find a place to sleep, and on top of that, he has medical conditions that could threaten his life.
Keystone Mission helped him obtain a current photo ID and provided the short-term relief of a hot meal, clothing, shower facilities, and a place to rest, but also focused on his long-term well-being. With its new 15-bed Transformation Center, Keystone Mission can accept people like Joe to start their transformation journey, connect with medical providers, and learn job training and life skills to help and guide them for the rest of their lives.
“I slept on the street behind a dumpster for two months because I didn’t have a photo ID, and Keystone Mission helped me to help myself,” Joe said. “Keystone Mission helped me connect with other community agencies and the Wright Center for medical care, and now I’m in an apartment and moving forward. There’s a stigma about being homeless, and Keystone Mission helped me have hope and determination to succeed.”
In addition to the 15-bed Transformation Center, Keystone Mission recently received zoning approval to convert the four-story Thomas C. Thomas building on East Union Street in Wilkes-Barre into a 32-apartment transitional housing facility to keep families together as they work through their transformation and get their lives back on track.
That’s good news as together our community seeks a lasting solution to a problem that must be solved. Thank you, Keystone Mission, Diamond City Partnership, and all other partners for tackling the various challenges we face and making our community a better place to live.
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5/21/2022
Sporting lives well lived, and the gift of life
My friend, Dan Lynn, was a great athlete long ago when we played softball, golfed and mixed in a little basketball. He was a great hitter and fielder on the softball field, a playmaker with an excellent shot on the court, and a good putter on the greens.
Dan passed away recently and I’m sure he’s already scheduled a few games and tee times up above. And he’s probably enjoying oyster night like he often did at Kevin’s Restaurant in Kingston.
He and I played on different softball teams. I was with Hoppy’s and Dan was with Bonner Chevrolet and later Zimnicky’s. I began playing softball as a teenager in the Tirpak League at Luzerne’s Connolly’s Field, the youngest guy in the league, and that’s where I met Dan, who was a good 20 years older.
Our teams were good and often battled one another for the championship but win or lose we joined together afterward to have a great time, share stories and joke about the next time our teams would meet. I learned much about good sportsmanship, giving your best and having fun from Dan.
There were basketball courts nearby, and after one of our softball games, Dan spotted two basketball players. He looked at me and said, “We’re going to challenge those guys.” Both players were tall, at least six feet four. I thought there was no way we could beat them and doubted we could even keep the score close. But I didn’t know then what a great shooter Dan was and that he played at Wilkes while in college. I kept feeding him the ball, he made the shots, and we won big.
Another time golfing at Wyoming Valley Country Club I faced a long, difficult, curving putt, which I somehow managed to make. Dan teased me that it was an easy putt, and just to prove it he dropped a ball in the same spot and rolled it into the cup.
He was active in the community, including Kingston Baseball, YMCA Youth Basketball, American Legion, Wilkes-Barre Jaycees, Plymouth Rotary Club, and Forty Fort Lions Club. There were plenty of laughs with Dan around. He was a great guy, he lived life well and will be missed.
Dan made a difference for many people, and that’s what baseball legend Rod Carew continues to do.
Although Dan was a Yankee fan, Rod Carew was the kind of player he liked. Carew’s natural hitting ability combined with hard work and a winning attitude took him from Panama and then the streets of New York City to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Elected in his first year of eligibility with 90.5 percent of the vote (it takes 75 percent to be elected), he had an impressive career batting average of .328 and 3,053 hits. Carew was an 18-time All-Star, American League Rookie of the Year in 1967, and AL Most Valuable Player in 1977. He hit better than .300 for 15 consecutive seasons and averaged .344 for the decade of the seventies.
Carew won the Roberto Clemente Award in 1977 and was a seven-time American League batting champion. He had the honor of his number 29 being retired by the two teams he played for, the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels, and is in both teams’ halls of fame. Since 2016, the batter with the highest average each year in the American League is presented the Rod Carew AL Batting Championship Award.
While his baseball career was stellar, he made an even bigger contribution off the field, using his celebrity, time and energy to teach kids how to play baseball, and promote bone marrow and organ donation. He became interested in expanding the bone marrow donation registry when his daughter, Michelle, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant.
Carew is black with West Indian and Panamanian ancestry, and Rod’s first wife, Michelle’s mother, is white with Russian-Jewish ancestry. Doctors were unable to find a bone marrow donor match for Michelle’s rare ethnic heritage and she ended up having an umbilical cord blood transplant, which was unsuccessful. Sadly, she passed away in 1996 at the tender age of 18.
Thanks to Carew’s involvement, the overall number of bone marrow registrants significantly increased as well as the number of potential donors with mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Another medical crisis occurred when Carew suffered a massive heart attack in September 2015. He required multiple surgeries and was implanted with an LVAD or left ventricular assist device. The LVAD helped his heart function until he underwent heart and kidney transplant surgery in 2016.
The hero of Carew’s health crisis, though, is Konrad Reuland, a young man who formerly played in the NFL with the New York Jets and Baltimore Ravens. Konrad passed away from a brain aneurysm in 2016 at age 29. According to the Konrad Reuland Memorial Foundation website, “His passion for life was exceptional, as was his love for family and friends. Even after his passing, Konrad helped save and improve the lives of over 75 people through successful organ and tissue donation.”
Konrad went to middle school with Carew’s kids, and he even met Rod during that time. Incredibly, his heart now beats in Rod’s chest. The Carew and Reuland families are linked together, as they continue to promote the importance of good health, the value of organ donation and living a good life.
Carew and his wife, Rhonda, lead the effort for heart health awareness through a campaign with the American Heart Association. Dan Lynn and his family designated that any donations in his memory may be made to the American Heart Association, 71 North Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701.
We can all do something to make life better for ourselves and others. That’s how Dan Lynn lived and how the Carew and Reuland families approach each day. Dan would be proud of them. I know I am.
3/5/2022
Sports can provide diversion when we need it most
Something happened last week that hadn’t been accomplished in a long time. Daniil Medvedev became the number one ranked men’s tennis player in the world, marking the first time in a little over 18 years that a player other than Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Andy Murray attained the top ranking.
It was the achievement of a lifetime, something Medvedev dreamed about from the time he was a boy growing up in his native Russia. But on the same day he reached the world number one ranking, his home country began its gruesome attack into Ukraine. At a time when Medvedev should have been able to bask in the spotlight, his mind was on Vladimir Putin’s military assault into a neighboring country and the devastation and killing associated with war.
It’s unfortunate for Medvedev and tennis fans around the globe that his number one ranking is overshadowed in this way. He was careful in selecting his words, but advocated for peace all over the world and admitted it wasn’t easy to watch the news from home. That’s heavy subject matter for a young athlete on top of his game who would rather enjoy his accomplishment.
Sporting events have long served as a wonderful diversion from bad news, a way to escape even for a little while from everyday pressures and enjoy a little entertainment. Lately, though, that diversion is being overrun by news away from sports competition; news of war, labor unrest and greed.
Phil Mickelson’s recent comments about the Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour and the people behind a proposed new golf circuit in Saudi Arabia got him into serious hot water. He lost some big dollar endorsements and said he was going to take some time away from golf to reflect and be a better person. I’d much rather watch him play golf and show off his famous short-game expertise than listen to the fallout from his comments. Time will tell if he plays in the Masters major tournament next month. He’s won the green jacket three times and the event is better when its past champions are able to compete.
Major League Baseball and the Players Association did a lot of talking last week and it appeared progress was being made toward a new labor agreement. Then the players union rejected MLB’s latest proposal. So instead of watching spring training baseball and preparing for opening day, fans are disappointed that the first week of the regular season has been canceled. Without an agreement soon, more games will be removed from the schedule. Meanwhile, fans have a hard time identifying with baseball’s millionaires and billionaires fighting for every last penny.
Maybe today’s sports world should look back at some times in history when the games themselves helped fans through difficult times. It might inspire them.
In January 1942, with the country fighting World War II, then baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis wondered if it would be appropriate for major league baseball teams to play ball that season. So much so, in fact, that he asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his advice. FDR sent Landis a letter encouraging major league baseball to continue.
“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” Roosevelt wrote. “There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. And that means they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.”
It was important for the show to go on, just as it was following the devastating terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At that time, commissioner Bud Selig postponed games for six days before teams returned to the field. The first game in New York following the attack on the World Trade Center took place on Sept. 21 at Shea Stadium when Mets catcher Mike Piazza sent the fans home happy with a game-winning home run off Braves pitcher Steve Karsay. Afterward, Piazza said he was glad to give everyone a diversion from the overwhelming sorrow of the time.
The National Football League, in conjunction with its players, coaches and team owners did not play the first weekend following 9/11. Like the pause in the baseball schedule, it allowed everyone time to grieve before the games resumed to provide a brief respite from the tragedy.
There is much suffering and sorrow around the world, and of course sports pales in comparison to the news of the day. With everything that is currently happening, a few hours watching an athletic contest might be beneficial. A glimmer of lightheartedness during a dark time can help provide perspective and an appreciation for all we have and the freedoms we enjoy.
Hopefully, it will inspire us to do what we can to make our community, country and world a better place. That’s a step everyone should take.
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2/19/2022
Spring training delayed … Can opening day be next?
That silence you hear is the sound of spring training not opening on time, no pitchers and catchers arriving early before the rest of the players, and no familiar sound of the crack of the bat or a ball landing in the sweet spot of a leather baseball glove.
It’s the sound of major league baseball and the players association not talking often enough to bargain in good faith toward a new labor agreement. It’s the sound of the current lockout, and now that spring training should be underway, it’s deafening. If there’s a sense of urgency among the negotiators, it isn’t visible to the fans who ultimately pay the price for the cost of baseball.
With each day that goes by, there is more concern that the regular season’s Opening Day could be delayed. The annual Jackie Robinson Day in April could also be jeopardized, an important date on the schedule when all players wear number 42 to honor Jackie and the role he played in making the opportunity to play major league baseball possible for anyone with the talent to play.
The delay is bad news for everyone, including the fans, the players, the owners and currently the various towns in Florida and Arizona that host spring training. Their economies depend on the influx of tourists and business associated with the traditional six-to-eight-week period each spring when major league teams sharpen their skills for the regular season. Thousands of fans visit annually and attend Grapefruit League games in Florida and Cactus League games in Arizona. They stay in area hotels, eat in restaurants and spend their money at the stadiums and stores.
So far this year, almost none of that is happening. Some northern travelers still head for the sun and higher temperatures, but without spring training baseball their numbers are considerably less than usual.
According to the Florida Sports Foundation, spring training baseball had an economic impact of $687 million across the state in 2018. The economic impact in Arizona that same year was more than $644 million as measured by a study at Arizona State University, including 6,400 jobs, $31 million in overall tax revenue, and $373 million in gross domestic profit.
That’s a lot of money, and it doesn’t include the economic losses that will be felt by major league cities if the regular season doesn’t start on time.
Statista Research Service, a leading provider of market and consumer data, found that regular season game ticket prices rose continually from $22.21 in 2006 to $34.21 in 2021, and average annual revenue per team also rose from approximately $170 million in 2006 to $345.8 million in 2019. The negative effects of COVID-19 were felt in 2020 with the average annual revenue per team falling to a little more than $122 million. The average salary for a major league baseball player was $2.37 million in 2003 and $4.17 million in 2021, with the minimum player salary increasing from $300,000 to $570,500 over that same time frame.
In 2020, it cost about $18.75 to buy a hot dog and beer at a New York Mets game, $16.75 at a Nationals game in Washington DC, $16.50 at Camden Yards in Baltimore, $14.50 at Fenway Park in Boston, $13 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and $10.25 at a Pirates game in Pittsburgh. The cost for a beer and hot dog at Yankee Stadium was $9 that year, but before you think that was a good bargain, consider that the Yankees are among the most expensive teams for game tickets and parking.
“Numbers as large as these should indicate there is sufficient money generated throughout baseball to allow MLB and the players to reach a mutually beneficial agreement and begin playing ball,” said Joseph Martin, a 44-year labor relations professional and longtime New York Yankee fan. “There are always ebbs and flows during negotiations, but major league baseball and the players association need to step up the frequency and duration of bargaining. That’s in everyone’s best interests.”
There are many issues up for discussion, but common ground and compromise must take center stage. Under consideration are expanded playoffs with perhaps a reduced regular season, revenue sharing, manipulation of service time to control compensation, free agency availability, luxury tax and minimum team payroll determinations, universal adoption of the designated hitter rule, draft pick compensation, arbitration eligibility, pre-arbitration bonus pool and more.
The sides are also far apart on anti-tanking rules and the development of a lottery threshold for top draft picks, so teams will be discouraged from losing to guarantee getting the first overall draft choice.
There have been proposals and counter proposals, but insufficient movement by either side. Major League Baseball is a business and its players workers, but all these labor issues and contract debates are enough to give even the most resolute fan a splitting headache. We need spring baseball now.
I remember taking my sons to Clearwater, Florida, for Phillies spring training. They were youngsters at the time who couldn’t wait to get there. It was eight degrees when we parked the car at the airport in Philadelphia and the boys were already dressed in shorts and Phillies t-shirts. Fortunately, it was 80 degrees when we landed in Florida. The plane was filled with Phillies fans, all wearing red, and it felt like we were at spring training the minute the aircraft took off. Oh, for the good old days.
There will be a labor agreement one day and people will again cheer for their favorite teams and players. For the sake of the game of baseball and its fans, let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.
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2021
12/25/2021
Challenging year in sports hopefully leads to better 2022
Remember the famous lead-in to ABC Television’s The Wide World of Sports?
The program, hosted primarily by Jim McKay, aired from April 29, 1961 to January 3, 1998 and began with the famous introduction, “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport; the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition …”
If you are too young to remember, you can find several videos on You Tube.
There were a number of victorious athletes shown in that introduction over the years, but for the most part, the agony of defeat was depicted by a video of Yugoslav ski jumper Vinko Bogotaj who lost control and turned end over end off a steep ramp on March 7, 1970. Most viewers thought that must have been the end of him. He retired from competition a year later, but finally experienced the thrill of victory when he coached the 1991 World Champion ski jumper Franci Petek. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
Many things happen over the course of a sports year, some good and some not so good, and 2021 was filled with both victory and defeat. The year has a great opportunity to end on a high note, though, with the College Football Playoff semifinal games scheduled for New Year’s Eve. It can definitely be a December to remember for the winners of the Alabama vs. Cincinnati and Michigan vs. Georgia games. The championship game is scheduled for Jan. 10.
The New Year can get off to a great start for local sports fans if Penn State can beat Arkansas in the Outback Bowl. Despite a modest 7-5 record, the Nittany Lions are again playing on New Year’s Day; a testament to their national appeal and avid alumni and fans who travel well, especially to bowl games. The many Notre Dame fans in Northeast Pennsylvania will be glued to the TV on Jan. 1 as well when the Fighting Irish play Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl. That game will be the first for new Irish head coach Marcus Freeman, who was elevated to the top coaching job when Brian Kelly abruptly left the university for the head coaching job at Louisiana State University. Notre Dame fans hope one day Freeman will get the opportunity to beat Kelly and LSU.
Highlights of the past sports year included Pittston native Charley Trippi recently celebrating his 100th birthday. Georgia football coach Kirby Smart took time from his busy schedule to celebrate with the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame member. Trippi won the 1946 Maxwell Award at the University of Georgia and played nine seasons in the National Football League with the Chicago Cardinals. He led the Cardinals to their only NFL Championship in 1947 with more than 1,100 all-purpose yards. It was great to see Trippi blow out all 100 candles on his cake. That’s some NEPA grit.
Somehow, despite winning just 88 games and playing most of the season without star outfielder Ronald Acuna, Jr., the Atlanta Braves won the World Series while the teams with the most regular season wins – San Francisco Giants (107), Los Angeles Dodgers (106) and Tampa Bay Rays (100) – watched on television. It was fitting for Atlanta to win the first Series since the passing of legend Hank Aaron last January. The last two full-season World Series Champs (2019 Washington Nationals and 2021 Braves) have come from the supposedly weak National League East. Guess there still may be hope for the Phillies, Mets and Marlins.
Novak Djokovic dominated men’s tennis by winning the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon championships, but lost in straight sets in the U.S. Open final to Daniil Medvedev. That’s three-quarters of a calendar year Grand Slam, a feat that has been accomplished just one time in the Open Era by Rod Laver. On the flip side, Chinese women’s tennis player Peng Shuai disappeared from public view after making an allegation of sexual assault against a former Chinese Vice Premier. Peng has since denied ever making the allegation, but the videos and social media posts by those associated with the Chinese government controlled media have the Women’s Tennis Association and media outside of China unconvinced of Peng’s well-being and ability to communicate freely.
Tiger Woods made headlines of the wrong kind following an automobile crash in February. Authorities said Woods was driving at excessive speed when he hit a tree near Los Angeles. He suffered significant leg and ankle injuries and his future playing golf was in doubt. While he says he is not close to being able to play competitively, he and his 12-year-old son Charlie astounded fans at the recent PNC Championship, setting a tournament record with 11 straight birdies. The twosome finished second, one shot behind John Daly and John Daly II. The elder Daly believes Tiger will be back to win more major championships. Despite the challenges Tiger has been through, it’s tough to bet against him.
At the age of 50, Phil Mickelson became the oldest winner of a major golf tournament when he won the PGA Championship at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, South Carolina in May. It was his sixth major championship, a number that would likely be higher if he wasn’t competing with Tiger Woods throughout his career.
Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Henry Ruggs drove at excessive speeds under the influence of alcohol and caused an accident that killed another motorist, Tina Tintor, in November. While it pales in comparison to someone losing their life, Ruggs also carelessly threw his football career and freedom away when he made the bad decision to get behind the wheel.
Once again, Dick Allen fell one vote short of being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Allen’s career numbers are equal to or better than numerous Hall of Fame inductees, and there is belief he is being snubbed from the Hall because of his off-field issues.
He was outspoken during the volatile 1960s and did not endear himself to the writers who covered his career and described him as a malcontent. His teammates tell a different story, with Mike Schmidt and Goose Gossage, both Hall of Famers, insisting he was a tremendous player, teammate and leader. His candidacy for the Hall of Fame will next be considered in 2026, and perhaps the wrong against him will be righted at that time. I hope so.
Sadly, 3-year-old thoroughbred Medina Spirit died earlier this month from a heart attack following a training work-out at Santa Anita Racetrack in California. The colt won the Kentucky Derby in May but failed a post-race drug test and was stripped of the victory by racing officials at Churchill Downs. Nine other horses died at Santa Anita this year, casting doubt on the track and horse racing.
What will 2022 bring? Here’s hoping it will be filled with stories of athletes competing honestly and fairly, without the drama and fallout from outside missteps and mistakes. That will be good news for everyone.
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11/10/2021
A Veterans Day salute to baseball and military service
As we observe Veterans Day, it’s interesting to think about what career numbers baseball Hall of Fame player Ted Williams might have attained if he hadn’t lost several prime seasons during his Boston Red Sox career serving in the military. Could he have challenged Babe Ruth’s then career home run record?
Williams enlisted in 1942 and received his wings and U.S. Marine Corps commission on May 2, 1944. He served as a flight instructor and was awaiting orders to fly in the South Pacific when the war ended. He left active duty in time for the 1946 baseball season and picked up where he left off, winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 1946 and 1949.
Known as “The Splendid Splinter” for his tremendous hitting ability, Williams was recalled to active duty in Korea in 1952, and had to qualify with new jet aircraft not available during World War II. He flew 39 combat missions and made an emergency landing on Feb. 16, 1953, after guiding his damaged and blazing aircraft to an American base not far from enemy territory. Recognized with an Air Medal with Two Gold Stars for Meritorious Achievement, Williams completed his service on July 28, 1953, suffering from pneumonia and an inner ear problem that prevented him from further duty. He returned to baseball and added to his Hall of Fame career.
Reflecting on his service in World War II, Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller said, “I did what any American could and should do, serve my country in its time of need.”
Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg was discharged from the US Army on Dec. 5, 1941, just two days before Pearl Harbor, but re-enlisted after the attack in Hawaii. Both lost significant playing time and the opportunity to increase their already impressive career statistics.
Williams, Feller and Greenberg are Hall of Fame legends, but there are also some lesser known players who served in the military and should be remembered. Outfielder Elmer Gedeon played five games with the Washington Senators in 1939, with three hits, a run batted in and a run scored. He spent the 1940 season in the minor leagues and was drafted in 1941. Gedeon was a bomber pilot until 1944 when the B-26 he was piloting was shot down over France. A three-sport star at the University of Michigan (baseball, football and track), he chose to play professional baseball and passed up a chance to compete on the US track team in the 1940 Summer Olympics.
Gedeon and Harry O’Neill were the two major league players killed in World War II. A catcher who appeared in one game for the Philadelphia A’s in 1939, O’Neill went into the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941 and became a First Lieutenant. He was killed in action on March 6, 1945, during the battle of Iwo Jima.
Major Bob Neighbors and his crew flew a night mission over North Korea on Aug. 8, 1952. They communicated that their B-26 aircraft was hit by enemy fire and bailed out. That was the crew’s last contact, and they were listed as missing in action. Following the end of the Korean Conflict and the exchange of prisoners of war, they were designated as killed in action.
Neighbors played with the 1939 St. Louis Browns and returned to the minor leagues until enlisting in the Army Air Corps in 1942. At the end of World War II, he made the Air Force his career and was the last major league player to be killed in action. Bob was the second of the Neighbors brothers to die in combat. Paul Neighbors was killed on April 24, 1945, just a few weeks before World War II ended.
Five major league players were killed or died from illness during World War I: Alex Burr, who played one game for the 1914 Yankees; Larry Chappell, a player for the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Boston Braves from 1913 to 1917; Eddie Grant, who made his major league debut in 1905 with the Cleveland Naps and played in his last game with the New York Giants in 1915; Ralph “Billy” Sharman, who played in 13 games with the 1917 Philadelphia Athletics; and pitcher Bun Troy, who started one game for the Detroit Tigers in 1912.
Although Troy was born in Germany, he died serving in the U.S. Army on October 7, 1918. Chappell died on Nov. 8, 1918 from the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed an estimated 20 to 50 million victims, including 675,000 Americans.
By the time lefty Bart Shepard pitched for the Washington Senators on Aug. 4, 1945, he had already been shot down over Europe, lost his leg below the knee and spent time in a German prisoner of war camp. The first player to appear in a major league game with an artificial leg, Shepard was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross between games of a Senators doubleheader on Aug. 31, 1945. He served as a player/manager in the minor leagues until 1954 and remained active in national amputee baseball. Shepard won the U.S. Amputee Golf Championships in 1968 and 1971.
Roy Gleason, the only former major league player to serve in Vietnam, was wounded in a shrapnel explosion in 1968. One of only two survivors in his 45-man platoon, Gleason earned a commendation for heroism and the Purple Heart. He appeared in eight games for the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers, mostly as a pinch runner, and finally doubled off Philadelphia’s Dennis Bennett on Sept. 28.
The ‘63 Dodgers won the World Series and Gleason was awarded a championship ring he took to Vietnam as a reminder of home. He was separated from his prize possession in the frenzied aftermath of his battle wounds, helicopter evacuation and medical care.
In September 2003, the Dodgers held a special night in his honor. He threw out the first pitch and was joined on the field by the entire team who presented him with a duplicate World Series ring. He is the last major league player wounded in combat and later helped all major league teams honor Vietnam veterans.
This is a small sample of baseball players who defended our country. On Veterans Day and always, thanks to all veterans in all walks of life for your service and sacrifice.
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8/28/2021
Little League Classic shows Maddon, Trout you can go home again
Author Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again,” published way back in 1940, and variations of that sentiment often find their way to various movies, Broadway and even everyday life. The idea is that things are never the same as they were before you left so don’t expect them to be the way you remember them.
That doesn’t seem to apply at the home of Little League Baseball in Williamsport. Just ask Joe Maddon and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels.
Maddon has never forgotten his Northeastern Pennsylvania roots and was more than happy to manage in his second Major League Baseball Little League Classic game last week. Trout, the Angels perennial all-star from neighboring New Jersey, was also excited to travel to this year’s Classic game against the Cleveland Indians.
Maddon, who also managed the Chicago Cubs when they played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2019 Little League Classic, returns regularly to his Hazleton hometown and remains active in community improvement efforts. He doesn’t necessarily want things to be the same each time he returns to Northeastern Pennsylvania. He wants them to be better and puts his name, time, energy and resources toward that goal.
This year’s game was his second Classic, so he prepared for the event by ordering a special t-shirt with “UNICO” printed across the front to honor his old Little League team. He was wearing that t-shirt when he got off the bus in Williamsport and was more than happy to explain its meaning to all.
“It’s just wonderful,” Maddon said of the Little League World Series and Classic experience. “I’m a Pennsylvanian,” he added with a smile looking at the surrounding mountains and noting that the home of Little League Baseball is only about an hour away from his childhood home. And as you would expect from Joe Maddon, he spent plenty of time interacting with the Little League players and their families. He’s a quality manager and an even better guy.
The big story about the Angels this year is the miraculous play of Shohei Ohtani, eliciting comparisons to Babe Ruth by hitting home runs at a record pace while also pitching effectively. He is the team’s designated hitter when he isn’t on the mound and competed in the home run derby at this year’s All-Star Game.
Even with Ohtani’s heroics, Mike Trout is still often mentioned as the best player in major league baseball today. He’s certainly one of the best. Currently on the injured list rehabbing a torn calf muscle, Trout could have easily backed out of the added trip to Williamsport for what amounted to a non-playing public appearance. He didn’t see it that way, and the fact that he didn’t says volumes about Mike Trout.
“It’s all about the kids,” he said, clearly enjoying interacting with the players and their families and taking in the experience. As a young Little League player, he dreamed of playing in Williamsport but never made it there. Now the father of a year-old son, and with the perspective of being a parent himself, Trout better understands the importance of family and appreciates how it plays such a huge role at the Little League World Series.
He grew up admiring Derek Jeter, the New York Yankee shortstop who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in September. With his career accomplishments to date, Trout is clearly on the path to someday joining Jeter in Cooperstown. Trout is also an avid Philadelphia Eagles fan and is regularly seen in the stands at Eagles games at Lincoln Financial Field. He might play on the West Coast, but there is still plenty of East Coast in him.
His talented teammate Ohtani stepped off the bus in Williamsport followed closely by the interpreter who is never far from his side. It’s ironic that due to COVID precautions this year’s Little League World Series was limited to teams only from the United States. Otherwise Ohtani, a native of Japan, would have made an even bigger splash – if that is even possible – interacting with players from around the world. Yu Darvish, also from Japan, was fortunate to interact with the Little Leaguers from his home country when he played for Chicago in the Little League Classic in 2019.
To date, the Pittsburgh Pirates (twice), St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, and now the Angels and Indians, have visited and played in Williamsport, and it’s an experience the players, managers, coaches and staff overwhelmingly appreciate. The major leaguers, who often watch the Little League World Series on television each year when their schedules permit, began playing in the Little League Classic in 2017 as part of Major League Baseball’s Play Ball initiative designed to encourage participation in youth baseball and softball. According to MLB, it’s working.
The 2020 game between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox was postponed due to the pandemic, and major league baseball recently announced the Orioles and Red Sox will play in the 2022 MLB Little League Classic game next August at Historic Bowman Field.
For every player who ever put on a Little League uniform and dreamed of playing in the Little League World Series and all the way up to the big leagues, the dream still lives in the youngsters playing the game today. I can close my eyes, go back to my time playing for the LCP (Luzerne, Courtdale, Pringle) Little League, and remember it like it was yesterday.
Back then, I wanted to grow up and play for the Phillies. I write about baseball instead, and that’s good enough for me. If you really want to, you can go home again, no matter where you are.
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8/14/2021
Despite poor TV ratings and overall lack of enthusiasm for Summer Games, the Olympic spirit lives on
In case you missed it, the Tokyo Summer Olympics were held recently. There were magical moments where athletes fulfilled lifetime dreams of competing against others from around the globe, medals were awarded, underdogs won, and others’ hearts were full just by donning the uniform of their home country. According to reports, the television audience size was “underwhelming.”
Whether it was the year-long delay caused by COVID-19, viewers reluctant to watch “statements” by competitors when they are tuning in for athletic events, or simply people choosing to enjoy the summer weather rather than watching television, viewership for the Tokyo games was down considerably.
Still, the guts and determination of athletes waking at the crack of dawn, training for countless hours, and spending multiple years committed to preparing themselves to compete at the highest level are what the Olympic spirit is really all about.
The host country, Japan, won its first gold medal in baseball as its spirited team defeated the United States in the final and relegated the Americans to the silver medal. Japan played baseball the way I like to see it played. Home runs are great, but the Japanese team did not rely solely on the long ball the way baseball is primarily played today in the United States. Instead, they used strategies that seem to be facing extinction in the major leagues, things like bunting, the hit and run, stealing bases, moving runners by hitting to the right side, and strong fundamentals, to take home the gold.
My malaise about the Tokyo games was put into perspective by a timely email message from an old colleague, Tim Gailey. I hired Tim 16 years ago and brought him to Northeastern Pennsylvania from Georgia, where he worked for AT&T and served as a volunteer at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. Tim shared his memories from his Olympic experience and that reminded me of the true essence of being an Olympian and a human being.
It was a tumultuous summer for Tim with his mother’s diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. “I told Mom I would forgo the Olympics so I could spend as much time as possible with her, but she refused to accept that idea,” he recalled. “Instead, she adamantly insisted I go ahead as an AT&T Olympics volunteer as planned. She made me promise not to drop out.”
His stint as an Olympics volunteer was a godsend, not just for Tim’s well-being, but also his belief in human nature and life worth living. “All these volunteer hours on top of the work I was doing in my job at AT&T helped take my mind off family troubles and heartache that otherwise might have overwhelmed me,” Tim said.
His Olympics volunteer designation was press steward, providing logistical support and crowd control on behalf of media. This was before smartphones, laptops and tablets were widely available. Statistics, background information and competition scores were continuously churned out in hard copy format and physically relayed to reporters and broadcast booths.
“I had a front-row vantage point to watch Olympic competition,” Tim said. “I wasn’t able to pick and choose the locations where I worked. Otherwise, I would have spent all two weeks gazing at gymnastics, swimming and track and field. Instead, my assignments took me to events I would not have chosen to see on my own, and they turned out to be far more interesting than I initially thought, things like team handball, fencing, weight lifting and wrestling. Thankfully, they were indoors with air conditioning, a huge benefit as the heat and humidity in Atlanta during summer is brutal, every bit as bad as what the athletes recently endured in Tokyo.”
Atlanta’s summer of 1996 imposed its usual searingly flammable climate upon the assembled multitudes, and Tim had a concern about tempers flaring in the densely packed crowds. Instead, something magical happened. “Initially, I had misgivings about riding the train downtown every day, anticipating arguments and yelling if not actual physical confrontations due to fatigue, dehydration, irritation, and maybe an undercurrent of nationalist antagonism if not outright hostility,” Tim recalled. “I couldn’t have been more wrong, or more humbled, by what actually happened.”
The trains and buses were indeed packed beyond full capacity. It was crushingly hot and humid, and yet the atmosphere inside was jovial and accepting, even courteous as much as circumstances would allow. Few passengers understood what anyone else outside their immediate companions was saying, but it didn’t matter. Everyone was uncomfortably hot and jammed close, but that didn’t matter either.
“There was a communal spirit that seemed to transcend happiness of the moment, a universal sharing of humanity and commonality at an emotional, almost instinctive level where language and verbal interaction were largely irrelevant,” Tim remembered. “Skin color, ethnic characteristics, nationality, generational category, cultural differences – none of that mattered, not even politics.”
This happened every day throughout the Olympics. “It was as if everyone understood we were all sharing something uniquely special and wonderful, and for most of us a once in a lifetime experience,” he said. “The sense of joy was palpable, unrelenting and contagious. It fed upon itself and spread throughout the crowd, and it happened daily.”
Those train rides were an epiphany for Tim, and he thought, “This is what the human race is supposed to be. This is how we’re supposed to treat each other, to feel toward each other. Come what may.”
The games ended, the flame was extinguished with the pledge to gather again at the next Olympics, and life pretty much returned to normal. “I’ve never experienced anything like that, before or since,” Tim said.
It should not require Olympic competition for us to treat others the way we’d like to be treated, but it’s a strong and effective reminder. Too bad more people weren’t watching.
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5/31/2021
Wyoming Valley Country Club’s 125th anniversary highlights friendships made and community support along the way
Crystal Hritzik was a dear friend and golf fanatic. We worked together at Geisinger, but it was when we began co-chairing the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Golf Tournament long ago that we truly became friends.
The 31st annual tournament tees off on Monday, Aug. 9, at the Wyoming Valley Country Club (WVCC) in Hanover Township after taking a year off in 2020 due to COVID-19 precautions. This will be the first tournament since Crystal’s passing in 2019, but her presence will still be felt.
I think about her whenever I’m at WVCC, especially now as the club celebrates its 125th anniversary. There are four par-3 holes at WVCC, and Crystal holds the distinction of having a hole-in-one on all four. Talk about being memorable.
Crystal’s husband, Joe “Max” Hritzik, the longest serving men’s member who joined the club in 1964, and her friends, Carol Lippincott, Jean Elinsky, Sally Price and Mary Zabreski are also annual volunteers at the Geisinger Tournament. Once Crystal became involved in something, it was a safe bet they would be there, too, Joe doing just about everything, and the ladies handling registration and other details.
In addition to the great golf played there, WVCC also has a significant positive impact on our community by hosting charity golf tournaments and events. In addition to the Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center tournament, the Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Wyoming Valley, American Cancer Society and Commission on Economic Opportunity (CEO), among others, benefit from events held at the club.
The WVCC’s Women’s Golf Association has raised approximately $100,000 for breast cancer research and care through its annual Isabelle McGuire Spohrer Memorial Golf Tournament, held to honor a beloved member and friend who passed away from cancer in 2001. Crystal was always working on this project, and at the end of the Geisinger tournament each year I gave her golf balls and other prizes to use at the Spohrer tournament. She was thrilled when I found pink ribbon gifts and donated them to the ladies’ charity event. After 19 years supporting the Susan G. Komen Foundation, this year’s Spohrer event also honored Crystal and benefits Candy’s Place in Forty Fort.
The club’s longest serving member is Nancy O’Donnell, who joined in 1952 and has been a member for an amazing 68 years. Veteran club members insist, though, that the course offers plenty of variety and they never tire of playing there.
“We have a golf course that is second to none,” said WVCC Board of Governors President Joe Butcher. “Every day you go out to play, it’s almost like playing a different course.”
I’ve also known longtime members Marianne and Dennis Puhalla well over 40 years. Like Joe Hritzik, Dennis grew up near WVCC and worked as a caddie when he was a youngster. “Being a caddie was like hitting the lottery,” he said. It’s no wonder they know the greens so well. Joe once caddied at a 1961 exhibition for a group that included golf great Sam Snead. Joe and Dennis literally grew up at WVCC and Dennis is serving as chair of the 125th Anniversary Committee.
It was Conrad Schintz, a 125th Anniversary Committee member, who got me playing golf more regularly. During last year’s lock down and social distancing, the golf course was one place you could still go and have fun. The clubhouse was closed, so there was no celebratory 19th hole, but Connie made sure Gerry O’Donnell and I played almost every week. Connie and I even played on WVCC’s closing day last December despite the cold weather.
Wyoming Valley Country Club is the fifth oldest golf club in Pennsylvania and the 45th oldest club in the United States. It was designed by world-renowned golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast, who also designed heralded courses such as Beth Page Black, Baltusrol and Winged Foot. Tillinghast disliked overly long courses that emphasized strength over finesse, favoring tightly bunkered greens and highlighting the approach shot as the essence of golf. “Make the player think a little, and then he’ll glory in the knowledge of having accomplished something,” he said.
Tillinghast was often joined in designing courses by PGA golf professional George Jacobus, the first American born president of the PGA of America. I had no idea, way back when my long-time friend and colleague Ron Jacobus asked me to teach him how to play the game, that his father was a well-known golf pro. Growing up, Ron wasn’t interested, but later came to enjoy golf, played well into retirement and carded a hole-in-one.
Wyoming Valley Country Club is also the home of PGA Tour professional Ted Tryba, who was on the leader board at the recent US Senior Open and finished tied for 34th. Tryba will visit the club to present a junior golf clinic, exhibition match, and fireside talk later this year. Other upcoming 125th anniversary events, according to WVCC Golf Professional Pete Korba, include an anniversary tournament in September and a black-tie gala in October.
To further honor the club’s history, the anniversary committee is planning to create a historical marker and permanent display designating the site of the original clubhouse. “The original clubhouse was located in the area between the number four tee and number five green,” Schintz said. “You can find the original stairs of the clubhouse tucked in the brush just left of the number four tee.”
Sitting on the club’s patio recently with past president Henry Pennoni and others, I looked around at tables full of friendship and laughter. That’s what golf and WVCC are all about. Eagles and birdies come and go, but your friends and good works are there forever.
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7/19/2021
Fathers, their children and baseball – a tradition as old as the game itself
Fathers, sons and daughters, and baseball. That’s a timeless trifecta as old as the game itself, and a tradition to be celebrated not only on Father’s Day but every day.
My sons and I continued our tradition last Sunday by attending the Fathers Appreciation Day game in Philadelphia between the Phillies and New York Yankees. The Phillies are on the road for Father’s Day, so their recognition event was held a week early. What started many years ago when Derek and Dylan were just little guys has turned into an annual event with my grown sons interrupted last year by COVID-19 but happily back in place this year.
The game attracted more than 38,500 fans, and the men in attendance received free Phillies hats. (Don’t worry, major league baseball also celebrates Mother’s Day and honors moms annually.) Aaron Nola was in control from his first pitch of the day, the home team scored four runs early, and the Phillies shut out the slumping Yankees 7-0. Aaron Judge was scratched from the game with back spasms, and it would have been nice to see the former Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRider play but that was not to be.
I usually sit behind home plate in the lower level of Citizens’ Bank Park next to the advance scouts from other major league teams. It’s great to watch them chart the games and prepare scouting reports for the Phillies’ upcoming opponents. With such great demand for tickets for the fathers appreciation game, though, we ended up still behind home plate but in the upper deck where we had a good view of the game and also the Philadelphia skyline.
There were many Yankee fans in attendance, and we sat next to a young couple with the husband wearing a Yankees jersey and the wife wearing a Phillies shirt. I learned they live near Philadelphia in Wilmington, Delaware, so I asked the young man how he became a Yankees fan.
“I’m from Long Island,” he explained. “My Dad took me to my first baseball game at Yankee Stadium when I was 8 years old and I’ve been a Yankee fan ever since.”
I told him I respected his family tradition, and he scored additional points when his wife shared that her husband was a Philadelphia Eagles fan. The baseball tradition, though, handed down from generation to generation, held true as he cheered for the Bronx Bombers. He took the loss in stride, congratulating us on the Phillies’ victory and most importantly keeping peace in his home.
When I wrote my book, “A Good Cup of Coffee .. .Short-Time Major Leaguers and Their Claims to Fame,” a decade ago, I dedicated an entire chapter to family members who played in the majors. According to The Baseball Almanac, there are 249 sets (and counting) of fathers and sons who have appeared in major league games. This relationship is prominent on the Toronto Blue Jays with three second-generation players currently on the team’s roster – Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio and Vlad Guerrero Jr., the sons of Dante Bichette, Craig Biggio and Vlad Guerrero. It was Jack Doscher who got this whole father and son major league thing going when he made his major league debut on July 2, 1903. His father, Herm Doscher, made it to the big leagues on Sept. 4, 1876.
Baseball truly is timeless. Consider Willard Mains and his son, Jim Mains. This father and son duo made their major league debuts 55 years apart, easily setting the record for the longest gap between a father and son making the big show. Peaches and Jack Graham are second, the gap between father and son playing in the majors at 43 years. The elder Mains pitched for the Chicago White Stockings in 1888, the Cincinnati Kelly Killers of the American Association in 1891, Milwaukee Brewers in 1891, and Boston Beaneaters in 1896. Although his career record in the majors was a pedestrian 16 wins and 17 losses, he was a successful minor league pitcher, winning 318 games and losing 179. Willard Mains died in 1923 at the age of 54 and never got to boast of his son pitching in the majors.
Jim Mains took the mound for his only major league game on Aug. 22, 1943, and while he got the loss he did make that game memorable as he is one of only a handful of players since World War I to pitch a complete game in his only major league appearance. He later founded the J.R. Mains Wood Turning Company in Bridgton, Maine, and made souvenir bats for the Boston Red Sox.
There are other fathers and sons in the record book. Bobby Bonds, with 332 career home runs, and his son, Barry Bonds, with 762 homers, have hit the most home runs of any father and son duo. Cecil Fielder, with 51 home runs in 1990, and his son, Prince Fielder, with 50 homers in 2007, are the only father and son combination to each hit 50 or more home runs in a season. On the pitching mound, Mel Stottlemyre, a long-time Yankee, and his sons, Todd and Mel Jr., hold the record for most career strikeouts by fathers and sons.
Then there is the irony that of all the fathers and sons who have pitched in the major leagues, Hall of Fame member Ed Walsh, who was born on May 14, 1881, in Plains Township has the lowest career earned run average, an impressive 1.82, while his son, Ed Walsh Jr., has the highest earned run average at 5.57. Ed Sr., or “Big Ed,” as he was known, won 195 games in the major leagues with 57 shutouts and lost 126. The last pitcher to win 40 games in a season (in 1908), Ed Walsh was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946.
The true family baseball tradition, though, doesn’t require either generation to be professional ballplayers. It’s the Dads and their children who follow the sport, watch games together, and play catch in the backyard who make that connection special.
This fact of life isn’t lost on Hollywood. After all, the main premise of the baseball movie Field of Dreams is based on the relationship between a father and son, in this particular case a difficult relationship that had baseball as its only saving grace. You’ll remember that the movie’s main character, Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, builds a baseball field in an Iowa corn field, presumably so Shoeless Joe Jackson and other former major league players who have passed on can return from heaven and once again compete on the baseball diamond.
The twist of the film, however, is that Ray unknowingly built the field so his deceased father could return and play a game of catch with his son. Since my Dad passed away when I was only 11-years-old and still playing Little League baseball, the movie’s final scene where Ray and his father play catch will forever be touching and real for me. What I’d give to be able to play catch with my Dad again.
That’s what it’s all about. Dads and their kids spending time together and bonding over the American pastime. Play ball, everyone, and Happy Father’s Day.
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3/11/2021
MLB Designates Annual Lou Gehrig Day: Honoring One of Baseball’s Best and Working Toward a Cure for ALS
It had to be surreal for the sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium on the Fourth of July in 1939 watching one of their heroes, Lou Gehrig, slowly step up to the microphone and thank everyone for honoring him on his mid-season retirement from baseball. Here was baseball’s iron man, soon to be named to the baseball hall of fame, who played in a then record 2,130 consecutive games, telling everyone his playing days were over. Less than two years later, his life would be over as well.
A few weeks before that hastily planned ceremony, news of Gehrig’s medical diagnosis stunned the baseball world and beyond. Few people had previously heard of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – ALS – or that there was no cure for this fatal condition. ALS is commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and even now, 82 years later, his ongoing star power continues to keep ALS in the public eye.
Recently, Major League Baseball announced a Lou Gehrig Day to be held annually on June 2nd, the anniversary of Gehrig’s death in 1941. Ironically, Lou also made the first start in his consecutive games played streak on June 2nd, sixteen years prior to the date of his passing.
On this date each year, all teams will wear a special “4-ALS” patch on their uniforms, recognizing Gehrig’s jersey number retired by the New York Yankees and the disease that cost him his career and life at the young age of 37.
“It’s a great day for baseball and a fitting honor for a man who always represented baseball with honor,” said Jonathan Eig, writer of Luckiest Man, The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. “Gehrig faced ALS courageously, convinced a cure would soon be found. I suspect he’d be disappointed the cure hasn’t been found yet, but he’d be proud to be in the ongoing fight.”
The idea that something had to be wrong with Gehrig began during spring training in 1939. The once feared slugger was still making solid contact, but instead of hitting home runs, the ball was falling meekly off his bat. Gehrig himself felt something wasn’t quite right the previous year, and while his statistics for the 1938 regular season were not up to his high standards – a .295 batting average, 114 runs batted in, .523 slugging percentage, 29 home runs, and only 75 strikeouts in 689 plate appearances – they would be considered MVP worthy today.
“For the past two weeks you’ve been hearing about a bad break,” Gehrig said on July 4, 1939. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth…I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for.”
That “having something to live for” drive seen in so many ALS patients is the reason there will now be a Lou Gehrig Day each year. Brian Wayne Galentine, a songwriter who has since passed from ALS, sparked the idea two years ago that major league baseball should have an annual day for Gehrig similar to the yearly observances honoring Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente. Brian, along with his friends Adam Wilson, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2015, and Chuck Haberstroh, whose mother was diagnosed four years ago, worked hard to get the 30 individual major league baseball teams on board, and with that unanimous backing major league baseball made the annual Lou Gehrig Day designation official.
Baseball’s involvement with ALS, though, goes well beyond Lou Gehrig, with many teams raising money to strike out ALS. The Philadelphia Phillies, for example, adopted ALS as their primary charity in 1984. A special display, Baseball and ALS, at the Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, features Gehrig prominently, of course, but also includes pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter, who passed away from ALS complications at age 53 in 1999.
Then there is Pete Frates, whose glove is in Cooperstown. Frates, who played baseball at Boston College and in the German Baseball League, was diagnosed with ALS in 2012. While not a household name as a ballplayer, Frates is well known for being a visible and driving force behind the Ice Bucket Challenge that has raised more than $200 million for medical research and funded a new medication to help slow the progression of ALS.
That’s a significant sign of hope for the approximately 5,000 people in the United States diagnosed each year with ALS. And now, Lou Gehrig Day is an opportunity to remember everyone affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the thousands of lives lost to ALS, including people here in our home community.
Lives like Jimmy Duffy of the Pittston area, a fun-loving, wonderful friend we lost several years ago; as well as my brother, Carl, who passed from ALS in December 2015; and his old college classmate at Temple University, George Curry, the record-setting football coach at Berwick, Lake Lehman and Wyoming Valley West who died only months later on April 1, 2016.
Just as Gehrig’s Yankee teammates suspected something was wrong with Lou, my family and I knew the same with Carl. It was difficult to watch him, once a fine athlete and many years ago a key member of the track team at Kingston High School, day by day become more weak, less vocal and less mobile. That’s what ALS does to a person. Carl was a good golfer, but when Conrad “Connie” Schintz and I golfed with him the year before he was diagnosed, Carl didn’t have the same distance on his shots and didn’t beat us, which previously would have been a given. Something was definitely wrong, just as it is for everyone with ALS.
That’s why the work to find a cure continues.
Thank you, major league baseball, for keeping this effort front and center.
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2/13/2021
Chalk another one up for the oldies but goodies, especially Arians, Brady
It was a Super Bowl to remember for the oldies but goodies, with 43-year-old Tom Brady winning his record-setting fifth Super Bowl Most Valuable Player award and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians becoming the oldest head coach to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.
At 68 years and 127 days old on Super Bowl Sunday, Coach Arians was typical in his post-game remarks, giving credit to his players and maintaining that he “didn’t do a damn thing.”
Modesty and good media training aside, Arians, who didn’t get a head coaching job in the National Football League until age 60 after decades of experience as an assistant in the NFL and coaching college football, got his team to peak at the right time. The Bucs responded by becoming the first NFL team in history to score 30 or more points four times in a single postseason run. They also set a record by beating three previous Super Bowl Most Valuable Players in a single postseason, getting the best of Drew Brees (age 42) of the New Orleans Saints, Aaron Rodgers (age 37) in Green Bay, and then the youthful Patrick Mahomes (age 25) of the Kansas City Chiefs.
There has to be some great coaching somewhere in there to position his players to excel.
Arians got his first head coaching job at Temple University from 1983 through 1988, but his first opportunity to lead an NFL team wasn’t until 2012 when he stepped up as interim head coach of the Indianapolis Colts while head coach Chuck Pagano was being treated for leukemia.
The Colts won nine games and lost three with Arians in charge and made the playoffs a year after going a dismal 2-14. The Associated Press named him the NFL Coach of the Year, the first interim head coach to be so recognized, and he followed that up as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals for a five-year run that included a second Coach of the Year award, two playoff teams, a division title and an appearance in the NFC Championship Game.
After the 2017 season and at age 65, he “retired” from coaching and spent some time away from the pressure of the NFL as a game analyst for CBS Sports. Deep down, though, Bruce Arians is a coach, and in January 2019 he came out of retirement to become the 12th head coach of the Buccaneers.
The rest, as they say, is history. And despite speculation that he might accept the Super Bowl trophy and ride off into the sunset, Arians says he will be back at the helm next year as his Bucs try to win two championships in a row. After that, he says, he doesn’t know.
His leadership qualities were evident early, during his days as quarterback at Virginia Tech in 1974 where he not only set a school record for rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with 11 (since broken), but set an example for his teammates and others off the field as well.
Arians was the first white player in the university’s history to share a dorm room with a black player, James Barber. You may not remember James Barber, but most football fans are well aware of his twin sons, Ronde and Tiki Barber, and their successful playing careers in the NFL. To this day, Arians remains a visible and outspoken advocate for inclusion and equality.
Other reasons his players respect him and why he’s been successful throughout his career include an undying belief that you can’t live scared either in life or in football. “No risk it, no biscuit,” Arians often says to explain his coaching philosophy.
High risk and high reward, but also the significant chance of failure.
Arians is known to take chances during football games, often calling plays not considered safe. He says that shows his players he believes in them, their ability, heart and desire. He is big on communication, trust and accountability, and will stand in front of the cameras and take the heat when things go wrong. He picks players up after they make mistakes and coaches them for future success.
Given his style, Arians must have a quarterback who can quickly and accurately read defenses, check down and determine the best option for each play.
He certainly got that in Tampa when the Bucs signed former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in March 2020. Football experts debate various statistics and scenarios while discussing players, but with 10 appearances in the Super Bowl and seven wins, it’s hard to argue against Brady as the greatest quarterback ever. Standing on top of the football world with more individual Super Bowl titles than any NFL franchise has won, it doesn’t look like Brady is finished either.
Arians and Brady setting records reminds us of other oldies but goodies at the top of their game despite advancing years (at least for athletes). At 39, Roger Federer hasn’t played competitive tennis in a year due to injury and is missing the Australian Open, but has announced he will be back on tour next month. With his track record, there’s no reason to doubt him.
Meanwhile, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, nearing their mid-thirties and at the top of the tennis rankings, await Roger’s return. They’ve been the big three in men’s tennis for a long time. On the women’s side, Venus (age 40) and Serena (39) Williams are still playing, and Serena continues her quest for a record-tying 24th career grand slam title. Martina Navratalova won a Wimbledon championship at age 38, and the oldest male Wimbledon champion was Arthur Gore who celebrated his win in 1909 at age 41.
The baseball Hall of Fame is celebrating 50 years since Satchel Paige was inducted. He played in the Negro Leagues beginning in 1926 but didn’t get a chance to play major league baseball until 1948 when, at age 42, he made his debut for the Cleveland Indians. When asked about his advancing years, Paige would turn the question around and ask, “If you didn’t know your age, how old would you think you were?” He pitched a game in 1965 for the Kansas City Athletics at age 59, throwing three innings, giving up a double to future Hall of Fame Red Sox left fielder Carl Yastrzemski, and retiring six batters in a row.
Then, there are the New York Mets fans who still talk admirably of the home run hit by Bartolo Colon on May 7, 2016. A longtime pitcher in the major leagues, he set a record that day as the oldest player to hit his first career homer, just three weeks before his 43rd birthday. Nicknamed “Big Sexy” in reference to his less than svelte physique, Colon perhaps put the exclamation point on the “you’re never too old” mantle.
Given the physical demands, there’s something to be said for the youth factor in sports. Take a look around, though, and you’ll see there’s also something loud and clear about the value of veteran presence and experience.
Chalk another one up for the oldies but goodies.
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1/23/2021
No strangers here, only friends you haven’t yet met
The Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.”
He easily could have been writing about my friend, Nick Alapack, who passed away recently after spending nearly 75 years being a friend to all, both locally and well beyond Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Nick was part of a group of older guys I played softball with back in the 1970s, and many of them are no longer here.
In addition to Nick and my brother, Carl Jolley, other teammates who’ve passed away include Willie Labatch, Gordy Aten, John Mayerski, Tom Iwanoski and Ron Amos. We played in the West Side League at Connolly’s Field in Luzerne. Carl played center-field with ease, and Ron was the best overall athlete. Willie was a hitting machine who showed up with his glove, bat and spikes slung over his shoulder. Our shortstop John limped around before games complaining about his bad legs and then played great. Tom was a steady infielder, and Nick hit with power. Gordy was our excellent first baseman and a first-class gentleman. They all were.
We won much more often than we lost, and developed lifelong friendships. Over the years, Nick, was always ready for Monday Night Football, going to Red Barons and Rail Riders games, or – his favorite – visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Incredibly, he seemed to know everyone, not just the people he met reading meters for UGI, but also famous people from the world of sports. His extensive holiday card list looked like a who’s who of top athletes, and he would regularly be in contact with Coach K at Duke, Lou Holtz at Notre Dame, or Yankee great Phil Ruzzuto. Nick called his friends at the Hall of Fame to let them know we were going to visit, and always took them some great Wyoming Valley food. In turn, they greeted us with tickets and memorabilia.
During one visit to Cooperstown, Nick met Arthur Richman, an executive with the New York Mets and later the Yankees. Like he did with most everyone, Nick became great friends with Arthur, who introduced him to many of his favorite Yankees, including Joe Pepitone, Roy White, Joe Torre and the boss, George Steinbrenner. Nick was a huge Notre Dame fan and often called his friends, Gerry Faust or Ross Browner, at the university to make arrangements to visit South Bend. Or he would call Tom Clements, his friend who was then coaching in Green Bay, to schedule a trip to see the Packers (even though he was a Steelers fan).
When Thom Russ and I started raising money to restore Pete Gray’s baseball glove, Nick was one of the first to get involved. He knew Pete personally and took pride in honoring the one-armed outfielder who played major league baseball for the St. Louis Browns during World War II.
Nick stayed close to Pete, even when Gray was spending his final days at an area nursing home. The nurses were concerned Pete wasn’t eating, so Nick regularly showed up with Pete’s favorite food, potato pancakes, and Pete ate every last crumb. Gray’s glove is now restored, but we didn’t get a chance to see it at the Hall of Fame before Nick’s passing. Our friends there, though, sent before and after photos I shared with Nick a couple weeks ago. Nick, who lost a leg to diabetes a decade ago, was happy Pete’s glove will remain in Cooperstown for years to come and tell the inspiring story of overcoming challenges.
Just days before he died, Nick and I had breakfast at Chuck’s Main Street Diner in Luzerne. We shared stories of great times, including when Nick took Thom and I to meet Bobby Shantz, baseball’s oldest living Most Valuable Player who won the award in 1952 pitching for the Philadelphia A’s. Nick’s passing was soon after that of Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Thom and I imagined Nick and the famous Lasorda walking up to the Gates of Heaven together where St. Peter asked Nick to introduce him to his friend.
It’s common to remember those who’ve passed as wonderful people, always willing to help others. But that’s really how Nick was. If older people on his UGI route needed food, Nick returned later with groceries. Or he cleared snow from their sidewalks. He was fun, giving, caring, a great teammate and a great friend. The world needs more people like Nick and my other softball teammates from long ago.
The Australian poet John Leonard was right when he wrote, “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” Sadly, it takes just a moment to lose them. Like my other old softball teammates who have left this earth, I’m going to miss Nick Alapack.
Rest easy, friend.
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2020
5/16/2020
Time for baseball and a little perspective
In the grand scheme of things, I have few complaints.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic with its associated loss of life and related, significant economic damage.
But I’m not a small business owner worried about my mounting expenses with no revenue coming in, I didn’t have to furlough any employees or lose my job as a result of everything being shut down, and thank God, my family is staying safe. You might even say I have great timing, as I retired at the end of 2019 from a long career in health care public relations and crisis management; getting out of the fray just in time as my old colleagues are working around the clock, seven days a week.
Like everyone else – well, most people, anyway – I’m staying home, wearing a mask when I do venture out, and regularly sanitizing everything in sight. I’ve been going on long walks on our area’s many trails and taking the time to admire the scenery and appreciate those around me. And although I’ve seen reports of people without masks squeezed tight like sardines and drinking beer on their front porch, I’ve managed to have no thoughts whatsoever of doing so myself. It is a bit frightening to open my bank statement, not just because the envelope may be steeped in coronavirus and other germs picked up somewhere along its journey to my mailbox, but also because the pandemic has created a wild ride for everyone trying to manage their expenses.
With the life altering things happening to people in my community and in the world, overall what do I have to gripe about? That it’s annoying to have my eyeglasses fog up as I shop at the grocery store? That my only dining option rather than relying on my personal culinary skills is to call ahead to order takeout? That I picked up a couple bottles of wine at the grocery store and stood in a long, social distancing appropriate line only to find that I wasn’t at the right register to purchase wine? Or that, heaven forbid, it snowed on Mother’s Day weekend when our temperatures should have been well into the 60s? I don’t think so.
There is one trifle, though, that I do allow myself to lament. Some of us may miss the theater, or perhaps concerts or other gatherings. Those are all great indulgences, but I long for the crack of the bat and the smell of the fresh grown grass on a beautifully manicured ball field. It makes me feel guilty to admit it right now, but I miss baseball. I know, poor me, right? It seems so trivial that I feel like the late author and psychologist Dr. Wayne Dyer who, when it was his turn to stand up and talk at an addiction recovery meeting, admitted that he was having a problem with his diet soda habit. He always laughed about it to put things in perspective, but really?
I’ve been a baseball junkie since I was a kid and have always used it as a diversion from personal or societal issues and challenges. When the news of the world is bad, which it often is, I could always put on a baseball game and relax.
Baseball’s role in helping us to heal is a big part of our nation’s history. Back when major league baseball considered shutting down during the darkest days of World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt emphasized that Americans needed baseball to escape from the turmoil and stress of the time and the games played on. Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the sight of President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch a few days later at Yankee Stadium was a symbol that while we had been knocked down, we wouldn’t stay down. Once again, baseball was part of the healing.
Now, during one of the biggest challenges of our time, our national pastime isn’t there when we need it most. That may change in the coming weeks, as the baseball owners and the players appear to be getting close to an agreement for an abbreviated season. Both parties, hopefully, will put the fans first and come to terms on a safe way to move forward, even if there are restrictions about going to the games in person. At least we could have live baseball on television.
I’ve watched enough reruns of classic games from years gone by so many times over the past two months that I know not just who won, but also most of the important plays. If it gets to the point where I can recall the pitch sequences I’ll know I’m really going over the edge, like Bill Murray’s character in the movie Groundhog Day who lived the same day over and over again so many times that he knew all the Jeopardy answers even before the clues were given. If I could only get one of those betting services from Vegas to take some action today on the outcome of the 1980 World Series I could quickly make my 401(k) whole again. Have to look for a silver lining somewhere, but they just won’t do it.
I have watched some live baseball, but it is Korean baseball and comes on TV in the middle of the night. There are no fans in the stands and I know none of the players, and I can’t help but think about the umpire’s close proximity to the catcher and batter. I hope they have face masks beneath those catchers’ masks. We were miffed back when we were kids and the coaches sent us to the outfield, but that Korean player standing all alone on the outfield grass is now in the best place to be. Social distancing at its finest. And I wonder why the names on the backs of their uniforms are in Korean but the team name on the front is in English. Marketing perhaps? The game I watched was the Lions against the Tigers, and I just know somewhere they must have a team named the Bears.
Yesterday, though, put the entire pandemic experience into perspective for me. With a classic baseball game on TV in the background, I heard from a friend who shared he was permanently closing his small fitness center business due to the losses sustained from having to lock the doors as part of the COVID-19 shut down. Then, I talked with my brother-in-law and his siblings about their sister, Chantell, who was critically ill on a ventilator in a New Jersey hospital intensive care unit. Sadly, Chantel passed away overnight. She is the second person I knew to die from pandemic-related causes. My longtime friend and colleague, Ron, who retired back to his New Jersey home years ago after a long, successful career in health care leadership, and who I taught to golf even though his father was a golf professional, passed away a few weeks ago after falling ill with COVID-19.
That’s what this is really all about. Two great people among the thousands who are no longer with us, another great person among many locking the doors to their businesses, and millions of others wondering what to do next. It’s sad all around and all too real. Hopefully soon we can argue balls and strikes and forget about the daily madness, at least for a little while.
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3/18/2020
Making the case for Dick Allen for the Baseball Hall of Fame
Richard Allen Jr. has a dream, and it’s one that can finally come true if the voters on the Golden Days Era Ballot elect his dad, Richie “Dick” Allen, into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Voting will take place later this year, and if all goes well, Dick Allen will finally be enshrined in Cooperstown in July 2021.
The elder Allen, who is now 78 years old, was one of the heroes of my youth. I became a Philadelphia Phillies fan in 1964, Allen’s Rookie of the Year season, when I followed him, Johnny Callison, Jim Bunning and Chris Short through a heartbreaking second-place finish behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals.
Allen played 15 years in the major leagues for the Phillies, Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics.
During a dead-ball era when pitching dominated and 30 home runs were often more than enough to lead the league, Allen hit 351 homers, knocked in 1,119 runs with 1,848 hits, a .292 career batting average (quite impressive for a big-swinging power hitter like Allen), a .378 on-base percentage, .534 slugging percentage, and a .912 OPS.
The 1964 National League Rookie of the Year and 1972 American League Most Valuable Player, Allen was a seven-time All Star with ten seasons of at least 20 homers, six with at least 30 homers, and one with 40 round trippers. He led the National League and American League multiple times in various statistics including on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs, runs batted in, runs scored and total bases.
Importantly, his career statistics compare favorably to – and often exceed – those of other players of his era who are already enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
I watched in awe as many of his homers not only left the playing field, but flew all the way out of Connie Mack Stadium into the Philadelphia night. I watched him run the bases expertly, both fast and smart enough to go from first to third with ease and steal a base when needed.
I also watched as he was described as a malcontent, perhaps the result of him being a proud black man during the volatile 1960s when the battle for civil rights was regularly front page news. Richard Allen, Jr. believes this has played a significant role in his father not receiving the needed support of the Baseball Writers of America voting members during Dick Allen’s time on the hall’s regular ballot.
“My father was perhaps the most misunderstood man in the history of professional sport,” Allen Jr. says. “He somehow developed a reputation as a bad teammate, a guy who caused trouble in the clubhouse. I’ve come to understand, though, that he was a dedicated ballplayer whose actions were often misinterpreted.
“Why else would Hall of Famer Goose Gossage call him the best teammate he ever played with? Why else would Phillies manager Gene Mauch insist my Dad never caused a problem? Why else would the Phillies invite him back at the end of his playing career to help their young players adjust to playoff competition? And why else would he be credited with saving the Chicago White Sox franchise with his MVP season in 1972?”
Why, indeed? The Black Ink Test, named because league leading numbers are traditionally represented with boldface type and highlighted by baseball statistics expert Bill James, measures how often players led the league in a number of important statistical categories.
Dick Allen ranks 70th all-time in this insightful test, better than 33 current members of the Hall of Fame including several of his contemporaries: Ernie Banks (73rd), Lou Brock (76th), Roberto Clemente (88th), Johnny Bench (109th), Billy Williams (132nd), and Willie Stargell (142nd). There is no doubt that Banks, Brock, Clemente, Bench, Williams and Stargell are bonafide Hall of Famers.
And no doubt that Dick Allen is as well.
The Hall of Fame Career Standards Test measures the overall quality of a player’s career as opposed to singular brilliance (peak value). Again, Allen scores impressively with a score of 36, the same as hall of fame members Roy Campanella, Tony Lazzeri, Kirby Puckett, Pee Wee Reese, and Hack Wilson; and better than Jackie Robinson, Orlando Cepeda and Earl Combs.
Baseball historian Bill Jenkinson is convinced that Allen is more than worthy of making the hall of fame. “Based upon the record of batsmen without the benefit of performance enhancing drugs – PEDs – Dick Allen is the single mightiest hitter that Major League Baseball has produced in the last half century,” he says.
Many among baseball’s royalty are similarly impressed by Allen’s accomplishments and career. Willie Mays says Allen could hit a ball farther than anyone he’s seen and insists, “Richie Allen was and still is a Hall of Famer as far as I’m concerned.”
Gossage calls Allen, “the greatest player I ever saw play the game.” Mike Schmidt refers to Allen as “one of the most talented, intimidating, smart, well-rounded, five-tool baseball players in history.” In addition to calling Allen a great competitor and among the best players and professionals, Tony Perez calls Allen “a good friend, great guy and true gentleman.”
Chuck Tanner, Allen’s manager with the White Sox, paid him the ultimate compliment, saying, “Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth.”
Dick Allen was a complete player. He could hit for both average and power, run swiftly, field the multiple positions he played in the major leagues (third base, outfield and first base) well, and had a good throwing arm until a shoulder injury hampered him. You didn’t want to miss any of his at-bats, as you never knew if a tape measure homer or an opposite field extra-base hit was coming.
The Hall of Fame honors the best players of the game. The Hall is definitely lacking without having Dick Allen among those so recognized.
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